


Rat Catchers

by seeminglyincurablesentimentality (myinnerchildisbored)



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Family Feels, Lots of brooding, big insane family, father daughter dynamics, tommy and his children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2019-12-30 10:00:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 35,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18313331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myinnerchildisbored/pseuds/seeminglyincurablesentimentality
Summary: The Shelbys return to Small Heath, much to the delight of Tommy's ten-year-old daughter Rose (whose mother is the late Greta Jurossi). Oblivious to the Changrettas and the vendetta in progress, Rose is just happy to be back home - but happiness is a temperamental thing when you're growing up around the Peaky Blinders.Set in Season 4.





	1. Coming Home (Twice)

**Author's Note:**

> Just to clarify: Rose Shelby is the daughter of Thomas Shelby and his first love, Greta Jurossi. For the purposes of this universe, Greta fell pregnant, the pair were hastily married, Rose arrived, Greta fell ill and died six months later, Tommy went to war etc etc...  
> (If this is as much fun as I fear it might be, I may have to rewatch and do the earlier seasons as well, though Rose would be a bit young then to feature in much of a way)  
> This is going to be a shamelessly sappy family fiction. That said, the first chapter contains some parental discipline.

Rose had not particularly looked forward to Christmas. It seemed set to be a lonely, joyless occasion. She’d refused point blank to partake in the charade of leaving drink and food for Father Christmas and his helpers; she’d in fact made it a point to sneak into her brother’s nursery after lights out to tell him in no uncertain terms that there were no such people. Leaving Charlie tearful and confused had given her some satisfaction, but it had done nothing to truly improve her mood.  
  
When her father had shaken her awake in the dead of night, her first thought had been that Charlie had grassed. Yet, not ten minutes later she was bundled into the back of the car, wedged next to Frances and a very sleepy Charlie, inexplicably heading for home.

#

Returning to Small Heath left Rose spastic with happiness. The big house, even after years of living in it, had never felt anything like a home. It had been quiet and empty and enormous and the echoes of drunken ramblings and gunshots had always faded away before she could discover their source. In Small Heath the houses held each other close, they were small and cramped and you couldn’t walk ten steps without bumping into someone, being shoved out of the way in a hurry or have a hand messing your hair in passing. The voices sounded of home, the food tasted of home, the rooms smelled of home.

#

She did cry when they set her Uncle John’s vardo on fire and she jumped out of her skin when there were guns fired; but she’d not seen her uncle or her cousins in so long that once the fire was out and she was back in the small house eating dead man’s cake on the stairs while the grown-ups poured whiskey on the floorboards and into their grimly set mouths, she could already feel the bubbles of joy rising again.

#

  
Her father sat her down in the kitchen the next morning.  
  
“Right, my little love,” he said, crouching before her, looking her dead in the eye. “I know you’re chomping at the bit to get out on the street; but before you do, there’s some new rules you need to know.”  
  
Rose nodded solemnly. She’d have promised the moon.

“These are important rules and they’re not to be broken, not under any circumstance.”

“Yes.”

“Now. I’m going to tell you the rules and, if you can repeat them back to me without mistake, your Uncle Arthur’ll give you ten p and then you can go out.”

“Really, Uncle Arthur?” Rose shot a questioning look at her uncle by the window.

“Listen to your da, Rosie.”

“Rule number one,” Tommy began. “You ask permission before you go out. Rule number two, you’re to go no further than Water Street or Frith Lane on either side, and if you go down by the canal, you stay between the bridges.”

 

Rose bristled slightly at the rapid shrinking of her territory but thought it best to keep her mouth shut.

“Rule number three. You don’t speak to anyone you don’t know. If you see an unfamiliar face, you turn and you run home. Rule number four. You come home before dark.” Tommy looked at his daughter intently. “Is that very clearly understood?”

“Yes.”

Arthur dug a copper from his pocket and held it up between two fingers.

“Go on,” he said.

“I ask permission to go out, stay between the bridges, don’t go past Water Street or Frith Lane, don’t talk to strangers and come home before dark,” Rose rattled without a moment’s hesitation, hopping off her chair and holding out her hand.

“Good girl.” Arthur tossed her the coin.

“Can I go out now?” she asked her father.

“Yes,” he said wearily.

Rose shot from the kitchen and exploded onto the street before she’d even got her coat on.

#

With her friends off school for the Christmas holidays, the first week in Small Heath was a whirl of games and battles and stolen oranges. Rose slept like the dead, raced out of the house at first light with her breakfast between her teeth and returned soaked, filthy and delighted at dusk.

Then, unfortunately, Alice, Billy, James and Helen were forced to spend half the precious daylight hours back at the school, which was just past Water Street and therefore not for Rose to return to. She spent most of her time following Curly around the shipyard, bored out of her brains but unwilling to return home where she would no doubt have been roped into amusing her little brother.

The second her gangs’ faces appeared at the wall separating the yard from the road, she would set off with a war whoop, leaving a bewildered Curly waving at her turned back.

“There’s a bonfire in Fox Hollies,” James announced on a freezing Thursday afternoon. “They’ve got a crate of fire crackers, too.”

“And they’re burning the devil,” Alice added gleefully.

Rose hesitated. The parish green in Fox Hollies was not just a little past Frith Lane, it was half a mile out of bounds. And, obviously, there wouldn’t be much point in having a bonfire before dark.

“Don’t be a gimlet, Rosie,” Billy groaned. “It’ll be grand.”

Of course, there was only so much temptation and indignity a self-respecting ten-year-old could swallow.

#

To her credit, Rose had intended to possibly attempt asking for permission, but when she went inside the house, the gang waiting outside, at four in the afternoon as the sun was still not quite touching the rooftops, she found the place deserted. She could hear Frances fussing over Charlie upstairs, but the risk that Frances, should she concede, would insist on coming along and bringing the bonnie prince on top of it was simply too great.

“May I go to the bonfire?” she asked the fireplace. It crackled in the affirmative and Rosie ever so quietly turned heel and pulled the door shut behind her.

#

She’d no sooner opened the back door five hours later than she found herself grabbed, enveloped by a smoky blouse, shoved at arms length and shaken enough to make her teeth rattle.

“Where have you been?” Her Aunt Polly’s face was pale and ancient looking.

“I-“

“Finn!” Polly yelled over her shoulder. “She’s back, go find your brother.”

“I’m-“ Rose started.

“You’re father’s beside himself,” her aunt hissed. She pulled Rose by the arm, muddy boots and all, through the kitchen, through the front room and sat her on the stairs with much more force than Rose thought was necessary.

“Pol-“

“Shut up.” Polly stepped away and lit a cigarette with trembling hands. “Shut up, sit here and don’t take your eyes of the front door. And when your father comes in, you look at his face and you’ll think about what you see.”

She stormed off into the next room and Rose heard the clinking of bottle on glass.

#

Time slowed to a near standstill.

Rose sat, still in her coat, still in her boots, damp and petrified, watching the door.

Every time footfalls became audible, the hairs on her arms rose, but every time the boots clomped straight past the house.

When the door finally did fly open, hitting the wall, Rose nearly fell off her step with fright. Her father was wild. His eyes were enormous and crazy and his breathing ragged.

He looked at Rose, slowly brought his hands up to cover his mouth and sank down on his haunches, his back resting on the still open door.

Rose tried to speak but her mouth wouldn’t open.

A moment later her uncles were at the door. Finn tripped over her father and nearly fell into the house; but her Uncle Arthur was past them and at the stair with one long stride and slapped her.

Rose’s head snapped back and tears blurred her vision.

“What the fuck d’you think you’re up to?” Arthur roared.

“I-“ Rose swallowed but the lump in her throat was to great to manage.

“Where were you?” Her father was up, steadying himself on the doorframe, his whole body heaving with heavy breaths.

“At the bonfire,” Rose whispered, keeping a weary eye on her Uncle Arthur, ready to duck if he should lash out again.

“And where was that?” her father asked, his voice quiet and dangerous.

“The parish green in Fox Hollies.”

“When did you get in?” Tommy let go of the doorframe, stepped fully into the house and closed the door behind him.

“I, uhm, just now…a little while ago.”

Her father was taking off his coat, hanging it on the post of the bannister.

“Are you wearing a belt, Arthur?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Rose’s jaw dropped a little.

“Could I have a lend of it?”

“Hang on-“ Rosie choked out and froze when her father fixed her with an unmovable stare.

She watched in horror as he took off his jacket, rolled his shoulders and accepted the Arthur’s belt.

“Stand up,” he said.

“No.” Standing up seemed like the most stupid thing to possibly do under this particular set of circumstances.

“Stand up and take off your coat. Now.”

Rose seemed to have forgotten how buttons worked. It took her an unreasonably long time to undo her coat. It fell off her and landed on the stairs.

“That’s not where that belongs, is it?” Her father sounded perfectly calm and reasonable now. “Go hang it up.”

The hooks for the coats were behind the door. Rose tiptoed past her father like she might have passed a tiger in a cage. There was a second when she considered ripping the door open and making a run for it.

When she turned, Tommy had his foot up on the second step and Rose flung over his raised leg in one fluid motion, his knee knocking the breath out of her for a moment. His arm trapped her in place before she could even think of struggling.

“Did you ask permission to go out?” her father asked.

“I-“

“Yes or no?” he cut her off.

“No.” Rose closed her eyes and gritted her teeth and still yelled when the belt landed.

“Did you stay close to home?”

“No.” She tensed but nothing happened.

“Right. Where’d you go?”

“Fox Hollies.”

“Fox Hollies,” Tommy repeated and cracked the belt down on Rose’s legs.

“I’m sorry,” she howled, hoping that this might sway things in her favour.

“Where you back before dark?”

“No.”

This time he whacked her immediately, hard, but Rose ground her teeth fiercely and to her own surprise kept quiet, save a grunt.

Her father stood her up.

“Up in bed and out of my sight,” he growled.

Rose turned quickly and started the long and painful climb up the stairs, holding her breath to stop any sobs from escaping, keeping her hands by her sides. She would wipe her

tears away once no one could see.


	2. Equations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose is suspecting she's missing the point somehow and the family is still royally pissed off.

Rose lay in bed, her chin resting on her hands, her blanket stretched over the bedhead and the pillow strategically placed near her feet, making a passable tent.

Charlie had tried to come in but she had hissed gypsy curses and he’d shrunk away.

Her little brother only knew English, because he’d lived all his life in a big, fancy house and spent all his time with Frances. The other language frightened him, probably because it frightened Frances, too. It was a great way to rid herself of him at any rate.

She could hear Charlie clomping up the stairs now, full of breakfast and looking for his toy horses.

Rose sighed, then sighed again, trying to sound like an old woman, wise to the ways of the world and its injustices.

She had nearly made her mind up that it had been worth it; the bonfire had been enormous. The biggest she’d seen, and she’d seen her fair share.

There had indeed been firecrackers, not quite a crateful, admittedly, but enough to bang up a racket and completely undo Archie Parsons, who’d been to war with her da and uncles and was always just a bit too pissed to walk straight. Archie Parsons had run for the cut and – so she’d heard on the walk home – nearly made it across when he jumped.

Yes, the hiding had hurt, was hurting still, as a matter of fact, but it hadn’t been the worst in living memory.

There would have been no question of whether going to the bonfire had been the right course of action, if Polly hadn’t been so very right: her father had been beside himself. Completely.

Rose had been late before, she’d been late many, _many_ times, and once she’d run away just after Charlie was born; and while her father had whacked her for the latter incident, he’d never belted her for being out too late before.

Nor had he looked as though he’d seen a ghost any of these other times.

And she’d certainly never seen him so shaken that he’d had to sit down.

“Rosie…”

“Fuck off, Charles,” she growled, then froze for a second, uncertain whether or not Frances or a similar threat were within earshot.

Charlie resignedly scrabbled around the room for a minute or two and then trudged back downstairs. Bonnie Prince Charlie hadn’t been out at all since they’d arrived.  

The top step creaked and Rose listened to heavy feet making their way across the room.

“Anyone home?” Her Uncle Arthur knocked on the bedhead.

“We’ve got nothin’ to give,” Rose growled.

Arthur pulled the blanket off anyhow.

“Shove over,” he said gruffly.

Rose rolled her eyes, but moved, wincing pointedly as she attempted to sit and ended up propped up on her side, as her uncle sat down, the length of his legs matching that of her bed. He dug into his pocket and produced a couple of battered Black Jacks.

“You nearly knocked me block off,” Rose said accusingly.

“Ah,” her uncle grunted dismissively. “You got off easy.”

He placed one Black Jack on the mattress in front of Rose and began to unwrap the other.

“Did not,” Rose muttered, reaching for the sweet.

Arthur closed his eyes, leaned the back on his head on the wall and chewed slowly. He seemed infinitely tired.

“ _And-_ “ Rose said through a mouthful of aniseed, “you gave him your belt.”

Her uncle glanced down at her.

“If you were mine, I’d have given you a hiding all the way to Fox Hollies and back,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because what you did was fucking stupid.” For a moment Arthur rested his giant mitt on her head. “Now, seeing as you can’t be trusted, I’ve got orders to bring you over to the office.”

“What?” Rose sat up awkwardly. “Why? What for?”

“So we’ll keep an eye on you.” Arthur got up. “Come on.”

“Fuck sakes…ow…come off it, Uncle Arthur!” Rose rubbed the back of her head with one hand and reached for her stockings with the other.

Her uncle was already noisily descending the stairs. “Let’s go!” he called. Resigned, Rose pulled on her boots and followed, sucking the remnants of aniseed flavor off her back teeth.

#

At the office, Rose was met not by her father but her Aunt Polly. It appeared a night’s sleep had done nothing to dampen Polly’s fury.

“Right, fun’s over,” she announced, nodding for Rose to follow her past the odds’ board, past the row of desks to the furthest corner of the office.

A desk sat facing the wall and when Rose realised what she was looking at, she turned to Polly with huge, beseeching eyes.

“I’m sorry, I really am,” she pleaded.

“I’m sure,” Polly said drily, pulling out the chair. “Get to it.”

Rose sighed and sat down gingerly, eyeing the pristine copy of _Everyday Arithmetic_ with undisguised disgust.

“How much do I have to do?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re done.”

“But-“

“You’ve had your chance,” Polly cut her off. “You can’t look after yourself, so we’ll look after you here. And as long as you’re here, this is how you’ll spend your time. I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to hear you. Start!”

“Any chance of a cuppa tea?” Rose asked feebly.

Polly shot her a glare that made Rose turn around and open her books post haste. She was beginning to suspect that she had royally fucked up.

#

By early afternoon, numbers danced behind Rose’s eyelids as she closed her eyes and lay her head on the table. Sitting comfortably was impossible and the sandwich Polly had wordlessly laid on the table at lunchtime was a distant memory.

Her writing hand was cramping.

“Come on,” Rose murmured to herself. “Come on, one more. Last one, ay, last fuckin’ one.”

She’d said this to herself for the last ten equations. It was useless.

“Wake up.” Rose jerked up, startled at Polly’s sudden appearance. “Give me those.”

Rose handed over the sheets she’d filled, half lifting herself out of her seat hopefully, only to be pushed back into place firmly.

Polly walked away and Rose let her head drop back down onto the table.

“If you knew Susie, like I knew Susie…woah…woah, what a girl…” she sang under her breath.

This time the pointed clicking of heels heralded Aunt Polly’s appearance.

“Take these in to your father,” she said, handing Rose a small stack of files. “And I’d recommend you’d conduct yourself with a bit of decorum.”

Rose avoided her aunt’s eye as she stepped around her and made her way to her father’s office door, only to find it closed. Heeding Polly’s advice, she knocked.

“Come,” Tommy called from the other side.

Rose entered, closed the door quietly behind her and approached the desk slowly. Her father was not looking at her, his attention on the piles of paper in front of him.

“Pol said to give you these,” Rose said.

Tommy nodded to a free inch of desk space. “There.”

Rose put the files down and stood, waiting to be dismissed, feeling a little like she was back playing army with her Uncle Finn when she’d been very little and everyone else was in the real army still.

Her father opened the top file and shuffled through its contents, Rose looked at the painting of the horse behind his desk. She’d not been on a horse in an age.

Tommy cleared his throat. He put the file face up on his desk, Rose saw her arithmetic sheets and it took all she had to keep from groaning.

“Not one of them wrong,” her father said, taking of his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Not a one.”

That had to be good news.

“How is it that a smart girl like yourself can’t remember a simple set of instructions?”

Rose sighed.

“I did remember,” she said carefully.

“See, your Uncle Arthur and Polly, they’ve been at me going on about children forgetting the time and children getting carried away,” her father went on as if she hadn’t spoken.

“I didn’t forget,” Rose said a little louder.

“I thought not.” Tommy regarded her just long enough to push her to the brink of fidgeting. “So. Now that we’ve both had some time to think about it, what’ve you got to say for yourself?”

“Ah…” Rose was taken aback.

“Go on.”

“I wanted to go,” Rose said slowly, “so I went.”

“Come here.” Tommy reclined in his chair and Rose took the tiniest step towards the desk. “Are you having me on?”

Rose shook her head.

“You deliberately disobeyed me then, aye?”

“No…I mean, yes, but…”

“Have I not taught you any respect?”

“You have, honest,” Rose squeaked. “It was just the once, I didn’t think you’d go spare like-“

“ _Spare_?” Tommy thundered. “I had two dozen men out there scouring the streets for you, I thought you were dead in a ditch or worse.”

“What’s worse than being dead in a ditch?” The question slipped from Rose before she could think better of it.

Her father’s stare hardened.

“Like I have time to spare for this circus?” He was on his feet now. “I can’t be having to ask myself whether you’ll do as your told; so, if you won’t do it out of respect, you’ll have to do it out of fear – simple as that.”

“I-“

Tommy strode past her and opened the door.

“Tell your aunt Polly I said to take you home,” he said. “You’re to stay in your room until I say otherwise and if I hear you’ve so much as looked at the front door, there’ll be a hiding to remember. Off you go.”


	3. Of Ghost Children and Rats' Tails

“And what are you up to?”

It had been four days since Rose’s sentencing and this was the first time her father had made his way upstairs. She put her notebook on her legs and looked up at him.

“Nothin’.”

“What are you writing?”

“A story.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s bugger all books to read here.”

Tommy looked down at her, took a drag from his cigarette and walked away.

Rose listened to the tapping as he swiftly descended the stairs, the thump of the door and the starting up of an engine outside.

#

Her Aunt Ada brought Karl round the next afternoon.

“Even prisoners get to have visitors once in a blue moon,” she snapped before Frances even got a chance to open her mouth. “I’ll only be an hour, keep your hat on.”

“D’you know what’s going on, Karl?” Rose asked as soon as the door had fallen shut downstairs.

“No. But it’s making everyone act strange, whatever it is.” Karl was a clever six-year-old, but a six-year-old nonetheless. “D’you want to play soldiers?”

“Orright.”

After all, there was no one to see and fuck all else to do.

#

On day six, just as Rose could hear the sounds of kids returning from school starting up outside, Frances appeared in the doorway.

“It’s a lovely day out,” she said gently.

Rose glared at her. Frances was a kind person, a perpetually sad, worried, nervous but really mainly kind person. It was not like her to purposefully torment people.

“If you want to play out, Rosie, for just a little while…” Frances was visibly searching for words “…so long as you stay right outside the house.”

Rose sat up, she would just catch Alice if she went now.

“Did he say so?”

“So long as you stay where I can see you.”

“Did he really?”

Frances looked hideously uncomfortable.

“No,” she said and Rose let herself flop back onto her bed and put her pillow over her face. “We can keep it between us, Rosie, not long, mind.”

“No, thank you, Frances,” Rose’s voice was muffled.

“Alright then, Rosie.”

Outside there were the distinct sounds of rocks hitting the back of a lorry, followed by the most enticing shouts of adult fury and adolescent mockery. Rose rolled over and nearly bit a hole into her mattress in frustration.

#

Rose tiptoed along the corridor on frozen feet, making her way from the bathroom back to bed. She was nearly at the top of the stairs when the front door creaked open and shut again.

“And what d’you think you’re doing?”

“I was only in the lar pom, I swear.” Rose remained motionless one foot still on the stairs.

Tommy hung his coat, folded his hat and put it in its pocket.

“Tired?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“We’ll have a cuppa tea then.” He walked through towards the kitchen. “Come on.”

Rose slowly made her way back down the stairs and followed. By the time she got into the kitchen her father was pouring himself a gin and the kettle was on. He nodded towards the table and Rose climbed on a chair, drawing her feet under her. Tommy lit a cigarette.

“Your auntie Ada reckons our Karl’s quite taken with your story.”

“Karl’s orright,” Rose said, blushing.

“What’s it about then?”

“Ghosts.”

“Ay?” Her father was pouring boiling water into the pot. “What sort of ghosts?”

“Ghost children.”

“And what do they get up to?” Tommy pulled out a chair and sat down opposite her.

“They go into houses, at night, and they wake the children to play games. They hold their hands so they can walk through walls and on the ceiling and be invisible just like them.” Rose looked over and saw the briefest trace of a smile.

“It’s great fun, but…so…there’s a brother and sister and the ghost children visit in the night, and the girl, she’s excited, but the little brother is afraid. So, when they come, he hides under the covers and cries. And the ghost children tell him they’ll not do anything with him, only he has to keep quiet while they play with his sister or he’ll spoil it. They make it so there’s really quiet music and they dance with the sister between them, upside down, around the ceiling and the little brother hears the music and looks out from under the covers. And he screams and screams and so then,” Rose licked her lips and cleared her throat, “so then, their mum comes running and the ghost children hear her coming and they get scared and they run away, through the wall but they’ve still got the girl, the living girl, in between them – but when they’re just in the wall, just passing through, the mum comes in and turns on the light and the ghost children get a fright and let go. They let go and they fly away and the girl is trapped in the wall.”

Her father seemed to have forgotten about the gin in his left hand and the cigarette in his right.

“And?” he asked when Rose didn’t go on.

“And…well…the mum, she’s asking the little brother _Where’s your sister?_ And he tells her the ghost children came and took her away. But she doesn’t believe him, of course, and all the time the girl is in the wall and she can hear them talking but she can’t knock because there’s no room and she can’t call out because the wall’s all around her face as well. She can hear her mum calling for her and her brother bawling that he’s telling the truth, but she can’t do anything.”

Tommy stared at her.

“That’s it, really,” Rose said, a little breathless.

“Bloody hell,” her father said after a while. “That’d ‘ve had young Karl scared stiff.”

“Karl says he doesn’t believe in ghosts.”

“What’s Karl believe in?” Tommy asked.

“I dunno, probably soldiers,” Rose offered.

“That’ll be right.” Her father poured the tea, not bothering with milk and sugar and not asking if Rose wanted either.

“What was it like when you were a soldier?” Rose asked.

“Ah, no. No stories about the war tonight.” Tommy shook his head and took a swallow of scalding tea.

Rose sighed and burned her tongue trying a sip from her cup.

“But-“ she looked up and saw her father reach for the bottle of gin for another measure, “I’ll tell you a story about before. Will that do?”

Rose nodded emphatically.

“Right. Your uncle Arthur and me, we used to hunt for rats to bring their tails to the shop because Mister O’Dowd’d pay us a penny for every twenty tails. But it’s not easy catching rats, they’ll bite you as soon as you grab them and they’re quick. Our hands and arms were a sight to behold and our mum would go absolutely spare. But after a while, we worked out a better way to catch them.”

Tommy lit another cigarette.

“We’d find the nests and we’d take the babies, stuff them in a sack and wait. And before too long, the mother rats would come looking and try to get into the sack and your uncle Arthur would batter them with a poker.”

“Did they not run away?” Rose frowned.

“No. Even when they were half-dead and bleeding, they’d still claw and rip at the sack, trying to get to their babies.”

“Did you cut the babies’ tails off as well?”

“We’d drown them in the river first,” her father said, “but, yes.”

“What’d you buy with the money?”

“Nothing. We’d hand it over to our mum and, if the old man didn’t get in first and drank the lot, she’d buy food with it.”

Rose sipped her bitter tea.

“Or top hats and coconuts,” she said with a small smile. 

“Smartarse.” Tommy didn’t return her smile. “The point is, Rosie, there’s not better bait to catch an animal than its young.”

Rose thought about this for a while.

“Any animal?” she asked finally.

“Any animal at all.” Her father’s eyes bored into her from across the table.

“Who wants to catch you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tommy said. “What’s important is that you listen and do as you’re told. D’you understand me?”

“But are they going to get you?”

“No. So long as everyone does the right thing, it’ll be kushti.”

“But if they get you?”

“They won’t.”

“But if they do?”

Tommy cleared his throat and looked at the ceiling for a moment.

“They will not.”

“They got Uncle John,” Rose pointed out, her hands clasped around her cup so tightly she feared it might break. “And Michael, too, nearly.”

“I’ll tell you something about your uncle John and the rats,” her father said thickly. “Whenever we went to the shop to collect our bounty, we’d stand next to each other along the counter. Your uncle Arthur stood closest to the til, handing over the bundles of tails, I was in front of the sweets further down, passing the tails to him from the bag and your uncle John was at the end of the counter, he was smaller than your brother is now and he was quick and very quiet, and he’d nip around behind the counter and fish the tails out of the bucket Mister O’Dowd dropped them in. Passed’em back to me and I’d give them to Arthur to add to our tally.”

“Did the man never notice?”

“Not for a long while, at any rate,” Tommy said. “We did it for months. But then one day, he moved the bucket to his other side. Maybe he knew what we’d been up to. It was impossible for John to get to the bucket, anyone with half a brain could have told him, _but_ he was determined to do his job. He made it right behind Mister O’Dowd, Arthur and me, we could see the top of his head moving along and then, at the wrong moment, he bent and stretched and Mister O’Dowd stepped back and your uncle John fell head first into the bucket of severed rats’ tails.”

“Ah, no, that’s digustin’,” Rose groaned.

“Too right, it was.” Her father was if not smiling, at the very least considering it a possibility. “We couldn’t trap and leave John behind, so there’s your uncle Arthur, hanging over the counter, trying to drag him out of it and I’m half pulling Arthur’s pants down to keep him from falling in as well, and Mister O’Dowd is blowing his top and whacking whoever he can reach – it was fucking pandemonium.”

Rose cackled quietly.

“What then?” she asked.

“He chased us out with a kick up the arse in the end.” Tommy thoughtfully swished the gin around in its glass. “We got a hiding at home because we’d lost the bag in the scuffle and it’d had our mum’s good scissors in it. And no shopkeeper for miles around would take rats’ tails of the Shelby boys anymore. All because your uncle John never knew his limitations.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’ll understand when you’re older,” her father said before downing his gin. “Right, time for bed, ay?”

“Or we could go out and see if Uncle Charlie’s fire’s gone out?" Rose asked hopefully.

Past sleepless nights, before they moved from Small Heath, had sometimes given occasion for a cloak and dagger expedition to the ship yard to check on the constant fire marking the docking station.

“Another night, little love. Go up to bed _and_ -“ Tommy got up and picked up the bottle and his cigarettes, “- tomorrow, if you’ve not got better plans, you can play out, orright?”


	4. Pictures

The gang held a crisis meeting over two pilfered cigarettes and half a packet of stolen biscuits under their preferred canal bridge.  
Rose had relayed all the information she had, which was barely anything and there was some serious wrecking of brains to be done about what to do next.

“You know what,” Billy said suddenly. “Your uncle Finn was round the pub the other day, to give my da a picture to show round.”

“What picture?” Rose asked.

“Dunno,” Billy admitted. “But he’ll have it in the drawer under the counter, I’m sure.”

“Can you get a hold of it?” James asked excitedly. There was nothing James loved better than a bit of a secret mission.

“I’ll try.” Billy took a long drag of the cigarette, careful not to cough. “We’re getting deliveries the day, he’ll be busy then…”

“Could you really?” Rose could have hugged him.

“Def’nite.” Billy nodded solemnly. “Might not have anything to do with this but.”

“Sure it does,” Alice said with absolute authority.

“Did your da not tell you anything else?” Helen asked Rose.

“Nothing.”

“How’re you supposed to be careful if you don’t even know who to be careful of?” Helen shook her head at the general imbecility of grown-ups.

“Right?” Rose took the last drag of the cigarette and chucked it into the water.

“You know what we should do?” James’ face lit up with sudden inspiration. “We should arm ourselves.”

The rest of the gang cocked their heads at him.

“If we can get…anything really…knives and pokers and broken bottles and we hide them all ‘round the place, we’ll be ready to defend ourselves if they come after us.”

“Come off it…” Rose scoffed.

“I’m serious.” James glared at her, clearly annoyed at her lack of enthusiasm. “Think about it, Rosie. If someone comes after you and we’ve got a stash of weapons on every other street, we’ll be able to fend them off maybe. They won’t expect it. Element of surprise, right?”

“That’s either brilliant or really fucking daft,” said Alice.

“Can’t hurt either way,” James insisted. “If we never need it, fine, but at least we’ll be doing something.”

He had a point, Rose had to concede. Anything would be better than sitting round doing nothing.

“Right then,” she said.

“Right.” James looked like he might punch the air in victory. “Meet back here in one hour with anything at all that we can use.”

“I’ll be longer,” Billy said. “Deliveries.”

“Grand, of course,” James said generously.

Rose, Helen and Alice rolled their eyes a little, but set off to start gathering weaponry.

#

Rose opened the door quietly and listened out for any signs of life in the house. The coast seemed clear. Frances had finally caved in the face of Charlie’s cabin fever and took him for a walk of the neighbourhood each day.  
Rose went upstairs and found a bag of soldiers hanging on her brother’s bedpost. She dumped them unceremoniously onto the floor and took the bag down into the kitchen.

Upon close examination of the drawer’s contents she selected three serrated knives and one medium sized cleaver, a relic of the days when her aunt Polly would decapitate chickens herself. She collected two empty bottles, one gin and one whiskey, as well as two pristine books of matches.

The bag was starting to have a satisfying weight to it, but Rose still went back upstairs to see if there was further gold to be struck.

She stepped across the threshold of her father’s room cautiously. Being caught here would do her about as much good as another late-night expedition to Fox Hollies.

There was a pistol under the pillow and a hunting rifle under his bed, but Rose knew neither was an option. He’d have noticed immediately. That said, there were no less than three straight razors next to the mirror. Surely no man needed three razors for his one head.

Rose sat down on the bed, loosened her left bootlace and slid the folded blade between boot and stocking. She tied her boot and walked a few steps, trying to work out whether she had positioned her weapon correctly, when she heard the front door open.

Rose picked up her bag and tip toed silently to the door, she could hear her father’s voice and a voice she didn’t recognise from downstairs. She closed the door of his room quietly behind her and slowly, ever so slowly, started across to the bedroom. With all her attention focused on the top of the stairs, where someone could spot her if she was unlucky, she walked right into Charlie’s stupid wind-up monkey with its drum and it set off an almighty clatter.

“Who’s in?” Tommy called from the front room.

“It’s just me,” she called back, praying that he was too busy to take further notice.

No such luck.

“ _Av akai, chavi_.”*

Her father only ever spoke Romani to her when there were gypsy folk around to be made an impression on. Rose took a deep breath and made her way down the stairs, leaving the bag behind at the top. She pushed her hair behind her ears and straightened her clothes, being introduced to new gypsy acquaintances required about as much etiquette as going for tea with the bloody Queen herself.

As she stepped into the room, Tommy motioned for her to come and stand next to him.

“This is my daughter, Rose,” he said. “Rose, this is Mister Gold.”

Rose knew that Mister Gold had no interest in meeting her, her father had only called her in to make a show of just how well-versed she was in the old ways, it was all part of the dance.

“ _Devlesa avilan_ ,”** she said dutifully, careful not to look at their guests directly.

“ _Devlesa araklam tume_ ,”*** purred Mister Gold. “ _Sijoukar****_ , Mister Shelby. And brought up right, I see.”

Rose raised her eyes just a little. Mister Gold had a smile like a shark that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Next to him, however, was a younger, much less terrifying man, with the most well-worn hands Rose had ever seen.

“This is my son, Bonnie,” introduced Mister Gold.

“Are you a boxer?” Rose asked.

“He is indeed.” Mister Gold nodded. “Smart little thing.”

Tommy was putting on his coat.

“Gentlemen,” he said.

“We’re off to show the world what a real fighter looks like,” Mister Gold told Rose.

“ _Baksheesh_ ,*****” she said.

Her father gave her the briefest wink before leading the way to the door.

“ _Latcho drom,******_ ” Rose said as the Golds and her father departed, letting out a sigh of relief when the door fell shut behind them.

#

Back under the bridge, the gang admired the impressive pile of dangerous objects they’d managed to compile.

Helen had somehow gotten hold of a mean looking axe, long discarded in the back of their shed; and James had brought a rusty claw hammer and several length of iron pipe. Alice’s sole but impressive contribution was a plank of wood studded with various nails that her mother used to murder any rats that dared to come near her kitchen. There were also two woolen stockings, one filled with broken glass, the other containing half a brick; a sling shot, a bread knife and, for whatever reason, a box of sewing pins. “

It’s a start at any rate,” James said, making no effort to hide his glee.

While they waited for Billy to return after the deliveries, they took stock of all the hollows and hidden corners that might make suitable hiding places. If all went according to plan, they’d have a cache of weapons at every second, maybe third, corner of Small Heath by the end of the week; every fourth in a pinch.

Billy arrived breathlessly a while later, bearing a bag of empty bottles, a corkscrew and – incredibly – the photograph.

“Are you sure that’s the one?” Rose asked after they’d stared at it for a while.

“No, there’s a whole stack of pictures behind the bar…piss off, of course that’s the one.” Billy looked mortally offended.

“It’s a wedding though,” Helen said, utterly perplexed. “That’s well strange, isn’t it?”

“They look rich,” Alice observed. “And that one looks like he’s just smelled that he’s stepped in dog shite.”

“Wouldn’t take him long, his nose is huge,” Rose giggled. “Can I keep it for a bit, Billy?”

“You can straight up keep it,” Billy said. “He’ll be wondering when he finds it missing, but he’ll know something’s up if it turns back up suddenly. He never forgets where he’s put something.”

“Thanks.” Rose folded the picture twice and stuffed it deep into her pocket.

“Shall we make a start with this stuff?” James said, motioning at their supply.

“I’ve only a little while,” Rose said. “It’s nearly dark.”

“We’ll stash some here for now and only do a couple of places,” Alice said decisively.

They pulled the six loose bricks from the base of the bridge and shoved as much of their loot into the hollow space behind them as would fit. They’d made the hole years ago, just before Rose moved away, to have a safe place to hide their penny treasures; it’d taken them weeks of scraping and levering, but it had been well-worth the effort. When they’d replaced the bricks they were left with the axe, which was too large to fit, the plank, some of the bottles and a couple of the knives. They split up and made their way to the agreed upon nooks and crannies to deposit their first set of emergency supplies.

“Rosie.” James said when they parted ways at the top of Watery Lane. “Don’t worry, aye? We’ll fuck them up before we let them catch you. Or your da.”

“I’m not worried,” Rose said indignantly. “So long as everyone does the right thing, it’ll be fine.”

She turned and jogged down the street, getting through the door with just five minutes to spare before the sun disappeared behind the blackened roofs.

#

There was a convenient beam of moonlight falling through a crack in the curtains right onto the foot of Rose’s bed. When she was sure that Charlie was out cold, she shuffled around until her feet were on the pillow, pulled the wedding picture from under her mattress and let her eyes wander over the black and white strangers.

The bride looked a little terrified, but not in a bad way, but the groom had a look on his face like he’d just been made the king of a small country. Everyone around them looked serious and handsome and relaxed, and afterwards they would have gone to eat and drink and maybe even dance. They looked like they might dance slowly only though.

She couldn’t put her finger on why they looked so different from anyone she’d seen before, they were only people after all and all people were somewhat the same. Slowly Rose went down each row of the wedding party and tried to commit the men’s faces to memory as best she could; she didn’t bother with the women.

There were footsteps on the stairs and Rose had just enough time to shove the picture under the blanket before her father’s dark form appeared in the doorway.

Rose watched him through narrowed snake eyes, practically closed, slowed her breathing and silently cursed Charlie for insisting that the door had to stay open when they slept. For a few moments nothing happened and Rose began to hope that her father had simply come up to…well…to look at them sleeping. This was something that parents occasionally did in story books and she did remember Grace standing over Charlie’s crib for what seemed an unreasonable amount of time, simply watching him sleep.

But then her father moved silently into the room.

Rose closed her eyes completely, acutely aware of the picture burning a hole into the mattress just beside her. Her bed creaked as Tommy lowered himself on the edge.

“You’d want to be the right way up to pretend to be asleep,” he said quietly.

Rose opened her eyes and sat up slowly, trapping the picture under the flat of her hand and sliding it under her leg as she did so.

“What’s this in aid of?” he asked.

Rose lifted her hands, entwined her thumbs and the shadow of a passable bat began to dance on the moonlit wall behind her.

“Can’t sleep,” she said.

“D’you know how to make a panther?”

Rose shook her head and Tommy, one fist curled on top of the other flattened his knuckles until something distinctly panther-like appeared on the wall. She conjured the head of a small goat. The panther grew huge and ate it. Rose followed it up with a bulldog, but her father’s hands were back on his knees. She sighed and dropped her own onto the blanket.

“I got something given to me tonight.” His voice was a low rumble.

“Was it a gift?” Rose whispered.

“Yes,” her father made a strange little sound, “it was, in a way. But-“ he cleared his throat and Charlie grunted in his sleep on the other side of the room “- but I think it might be better off with you.”

Rose sat up a little more, only the feel of the edges of the picture under her leg stopped her from getting out of bed completely.

“What is it?” she asked as quietly as she could.

Tommy put a hand in his jacket pocket and withdrew a small photograph.  
For a split-second Rose was terrified that he’d somehow, magically, moved the picture from under her leg into his pocket. She’d seen a conjurer do something like it once at a fair. But when she moved her leg, she felt her secret safe beneath her. Her father held the photograph out for her to take and she did so carefully, tilting it into the moonbeam until she got the angle right.

“Wild rovers at the seaside,” she read slowly. “Is that…”

“It is.”

“Where’d that come from?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Why doesn’t it?” Rose asked without taking her eyes of her mother.

“Because it’s yours now,” Tommy said. “No matter who’s it was before.”

“She’s pretty, isn’t she?” Rose felt a tickle on her face, went to scratch and was surprised to find her cheek wet.

“She was.” Her father sounded far away. “She had ideas, too. Lots of them. Big and small and all of them good ones.”

Rose sniffed.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“That’s orright, Rosie.” Tommy rested his hand on her head. “Go to sleep and tomorrow we’ll get a frame and put her up with Grace, ay?”

“No,” Rose said much louder, much harsher than she intended.

Slowly her father withdrew his hand. She looked up at him and watched his jaw set and his eyes dry.

“Suit yourself,” he said after a moment.

“I will,” she said indignantly.

Her father left without another word and Rose stayed with her feet on the pillow, looking at her mother until she finally fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Come here, girl.  
> ** It is God who brought you.  
> *** It is with God that I found you.   
> (These two phrases are a formulaic greeting, supposedly.)  
> **** She is pretty  
> ***** Good fortune  
> ******Good journey
> 
> Yes, I admit, the whole point of meeting the Golds was to put in some gratuitous Romani. And no. I'm not certain of any of it, it was the best the internet could yield and I'm a sucker for it in the series.
> 
> If you know better, please teach me.


	5. Gunfire - Real and Otherwise

Alice and Helen knocked on the back door in the morning, just as Rose was finishing her breakfast.

“No school?” asked Frances suspiciously when she opened.

“Miss Friar’s sister after having a baby,” Alice said without blinking an eye. “She fairly ran from the room when they called her, she did.”

“Can Rosie come out?” Helen asked.

“Come in a minute,” Rosie said, getting up and cramming the crust of her bread into her mouth. “I’ll show you something.”

They squeezed past Frances, who looked a bit put out, and trooped up the stairs.

“Out,” Rose snapped at Charlie who was busy arranging horses in a pen made from dulled pencils.

“Why…” he whined.

“ ’cause I fucking said,” she hissed.

Her brother stood up wearily and dragged his feet on the way out. Rose closed the door behind him and produced the wild rovers at the seaside from under her pillow.

“Your da looks so different,” Helen exclaimed. “Who’s she?”

“Guess,” Rose said.

Alice took the picture from Helen and studied it intently, looking over at Rose once in a while.

“That’s your mum,” she said finally with absolute certainty.

“Get out of it.” Helen grabbed the picture back.

“She’s the image of her, lookit,” Alice waked over and pulled Rose’s hair back. “Eyebrows are exactly the same and the mouth, too.”

“But you said there were no pictures of her,” Helen said, looking at Rose dubiously.

“There weren’t,” she said. “But there’s one now. D’you really think I look like her, Alice?”

“The spit…well, nearly.” Alice leaned in to get another look. “She’s lovely.”

“She-“ Rose started but a bang from outside cut her off, making a three girls jump.

“Was that a gun?” Alice shrieked.

“Hang on-“

Rose flung the door open, raced across the landing and into Frances’ room, pushed open the window and climbed out onto the wall dividing the their place from next door. Her uncle Arthur was standing on his back step, gun still in hand. Rose looked at the scene for a second, trying to work out what had happened.

“Are you after killing the wall, uncle Arthur?” she shouted down.

Arthur swung around, his eyes glassy, possibly with drink, and waved the gun at her. Rose nearly fell off the wall.

“Get-“ he started, but then there was her father’s voice shouting from inside Arthur’s and her aunt Linda was shouting as well, and Rose scrambled back over the window sill.

“What’s going on?” Helen asked wearily when Rose returned.

“They’re all mad.” Rose grabbed her coat from under the bed. “Let’s go, aye?”

#

They kept busy dispersing their weaponry for the best part of the morning, until they were starving.

“Will your mum feed us?” Rose asked Alice.

“We’re still meant to be in school,” Alice sighed. “D’you have any money?”

Rose didn’t but the company office was just round the corner. Her father might still be testy after last night’s encounter, but if he was busy and she asked very nicely he might give her some shrapnel just to be rid of her.

“How’s Rosie?” Lizzie asked from behind her desk when Rose came in.

“Alive and kickin’,” Rose said with a smile. “How’s Lizzie?”

“Much the same.” Lizzie nodded towards the door. “You best wait. He’s got Missis Ross in there with him.”

Rose frowned. A visit from Missis Ross was bound to leave her father in a less than cheerful mood. Sure enough, when Missis Ross emerged a few moments later she looked as though she might be sick into the waste basket any second.

“Have a good day, Missis Ross,” Rose said politely.

For a moment Missis Ross looked at her as though she had no idea who she was.

“And you, Rosie,” she muttered finally before walking off as though she was on a tightrope.

“Go on in,” Lizzie sighed, returning to her papers.

Rose opened the door to the office a tiny bit and poked her head in. Her father was sitting behind his desk, staring up at the ceiling.

“What is it now?” he asked, just when she was certain he hadn’t seen her.

“We’re starving to death, Alice and Helen and me,” she said, stepping through the door cautiously. “Can we have a coin for a cob, please?”

“D’you think I’m made of money?” Tommy asked.

Rose let the question hang in the air for a moment.

“Yea?” she finally offered.

Tommy just looked at her, a little incredulous.

“It’s not just for me,” Rose reiterated. “Helen and Alice are hungry, too.”

“Come here.”

Rose approached slowly. Judging from the look on his face he was just as likely to give her a clip round the ear instead of spare change.

“There,” he said gruffly, holding out a shilling, which was much more than she’d been hoping for. “Now, bugger off, bank’s closed.”

“Thanks very much, da,” Rose grinned.

He waved her away as if she was a horse fly, but that did little to dampen her mood now.

“Who wants to go to the pictures?” she crowed when she rejoined Alice and Helen outside. “We’re having a posh day out on the town, by order of the Peaky Blinders.”

#

A few days later the money was long gone and Rose and her friends were prowling the streets for some entertainment on a Saturday morning.

“I can’t believe you went to the pictures without us… and in the middle of the bloody week,” James groused for the umpteenth time. “We could’ve gone now. Are you sure your da won’t fork out again, Rosie?”

“If I ask for any more, he’ll fuckin’ eat me,” she said, again, wearily.

“Can’t you nick some?” Billy pleaded.

“You go home and nick some yourself,” Rose shot back.

“I’ll be killed.”

“Well, so will I.”

“Stop arguin’, youse two.” Alice pointed down the road. “Look who’s out.”

Archie Parsons was leaning lopsidedly on the corner, trying to manage matches and failing miserably. James let out a quiet whistle, sailing hid hand through the air and finally exploding an imaginary bomb.

“Ah no,” Rose groaned. “He’s orright.”

“Well, I’m about to die from boredom,” Alice countered. “So, ah _yes_. Come on.”

“Once,” Rose said pointedly. “We’ll do it just the once.”

“You’ll do the talking,” Alice pointed at Rose and Billy; and before either had a chance to protest, the other three had dashed off up the road, to double back on the other side of the buildings.

“Come on,” Billy said cheerfully and sauntered across the street towards Archie Parsons, who now seemed resigned to having to eat his cigarette.

Rose sighed and, for lack of a better plan, followed.

“Orright, Mister Parsons,” Billy called out when he was only a couple of steps away.

Archie Parsons looked up bleary-eyed.

“D’you need a hand there?” Rose asked innocently, catching up with Billy.

“Ah…little Miss Shelby,” Archie said, slurring only very slightly. “How’s your da?”

“Fine, thank you, Mister Parsons,” she said.

Behind Archie Parsons, Alice’s head poked out from behind the corner and she gave Rose and Billy the thumbs up. Billy took the matches from Archie Parsons and struck one up with no problems.

“Here you are,” he said.

“Ta’ very-“

A deafening bang cut him off. Behind the corner an ungodly racket of crashes and banging started up – planks of wood on metal bins and drainpipes – and Archie Parsons hit the ground. His cigarettes went flying, as did his cap when he flung his arms over his head for protection, yelling his head of with incoherent obscenities and appeals to his protective saint.  
Alice, Helen and James rounded the corner, half hysterical with laughter; Billy grabbed the cigarettes and Rose’s arm and they were off.

Three corners later they slowed down, panting, and settled with their backs against the wall behind the shelter of a discarded handcart. Billy passed the cigarettes around and the matches.   
About fifteen seconds after Rose had lit hers, her uncle Finn rounded the corner.

“You’re wanted home,” he announced.

“Why?” Rose asked.

“Don’t give me lip whilst you’ve got a fucking fag in your mouth.”

“D’you want one?”

“Come on, Rosie, before you make trouble for yourself.”

“I’ll see you later.” Rose got up and put her cigarette between her uncle’s outstretched fingers.

“We’re at the green blocks after lunch time.” James waved her a cheerful goodbye.

Rose jogged to catch up to her uncle.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“You’re going home,” Finn snapped.

“Who pissed in your porridge?” Rose frowned at him.

Her uncle stopped, crushed the cigarette underfoot and stared her down.

“I saw what you did,” he said. “To Archie Parsons. You and those little fuckers over there.”

“I-“ Rose could feel the colour drain from her face. “You-“

“He’s all fucked in the head from the war, messing with him’s…uncalled for. It’s fucking well uncalled for, Rosie.” Finn shook his head at her and turned to keep going.

“You can’t tell him.” Rose grabbed onto her uncle’s sleeve, was shaken off and ran to keep pace with him. “Please, you can’t. He’ll skin me alive, you know he will.”

“So you’re brave enough to pick on a poor prick like that-“

“I didn’t want to do it,” Rose pleaded. “But then…it just sort of happened…I’m sorry, I really am.”

“And? What good is that?”

“I’ll…uhm…” She was on the verge of tears now.

This particular past-time, shell-shocking they called it, had been a rampant craze amongst the Small Heath kids in the first couple after the war. Rose supposed they probably played it all over Birmingham. The first time they’d seen some older kids do it to one of the returned soldiers, they’d been dizzy with the possibility of reducing a grown man to rubble. And with just a bit of noise, too.

There’d been no discussion about whether or not this was something they, too, wanted to do. It had been a given. Sure, they had realised that it was a cruel thing to do, Rose thought they had anyway; but all the kids were doing it and it was simply too exciting a prospect – just to see if it would work – to be missed.

So, Rose and her friends, all of six and seven years old, had snuck up on Danny Whizzbang with two enormous pot lids and a wooden mallet, and produced sounds that sent him into such a frenzy he went flying into the pub and smashed half the place to bits.

They were still not sure who had grassed. It didn’t really matter.

What mattered was that when Rose got in that evening her father was sitting on the stairs waiting for her with a photograph of his tunneling company, rolled up shirtsleeves and the wrath of god.

By the time she was released to bed, Rose knew the names of all twenty-five men in the picture. She knew where they were from and whether they’d made it back there, she knew which one’s had children and which of these children were now orphaned; she knew which one’s had lost their minds deep down under the ground in the airless, endless holes they were digging and which ones had watched them disappear into madness. The hiding itself had been negligible; Tommy had only smacked her when she didn’t remember a name or a detail after he’d told her it twice and Rose had an excellent memory.

She’d not played shell-shock again…until just now.

“I’ll think of something…” Rose thought she might get on her knees in a moment. “I’ll make it up to him, I swear, somehow… I’ll think of something, honest to god, just please, please, please Finn, don’t tell him.”

“Stop bawling,” her uncle said with a sigh. “I’m not telling him, orright? He’s got enough on as is. But you do that again, I’ll have you meself, d’you hear me?”

“Yea,” she sniffed. “I won’t. Cross my heart, I won’t.”

“Good. Now, get a move on, ay?”

They turned into Watery Lane and by the time they got through the door Rose had pulled herself more or less together.

“What kept you?” her father called from the kitchen.

“She’s a hard girl to find,” Finn said wearily. “Are we going?”

“Johnny Dogs is already there.” Tommy emerged from the front room. “Arthur’s leaving now.”

“What’s going on?” Rose asked.

“Upstairs, you, that’s what’s going on,” he snapped.

“Why?” A flash of terror went through Rose as the possibility that he already knew what she’d been up to.

“Because you’re smart enough to do as your told.” Tommy fixed her with a stare as he put on his cap. “Upstairs, now, and stay til one of us is back. D’you understand me?”

Rose breathed a silent sigh of relief.

“Yes,” she said. “Absolutely.”

She dashed up the stairs before her father could say anything more and dropped face first onto her bed. This wasn’t too bad, she told herself, she needed some time to think about what to do for Archie Parsons anyway.  



	6. Sandwiches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy drowns his worries and Rose tells another story.

Rose woke in the dead of night, her boots still on her feet and lay awake for a moment, trying to remember her dream. It slipped away from her though, save a vague idea that it had been a very nice one.

Rose didn’t know when she’d fallen asleep, but she’d missed both lunch and dinner and now that she was fully awake – feeling the best rested she had in weeks, actually – she found she was absolutely famished. Rose sat up and looked over to check if Charlie was asleep, which he was, snoring very quietly; so she got up and silently made her way downstairs.

The fire was burning in the front room but all the other lights were off, the orange glow falling through the door and onto the bottom of the stairs was in equal measure inviting and creepy. Rose heard the tell-tale clink of glass on glass, the sound of someone washing away the bits of the day they wanted to forget, carefully stepped over the creaky stair and made it to the doorway unnoticed.

Her father was sitting staring into the fire, glass in hand, the bottle beside him not too empty though, just staring and staring, like he wanted to disappear into the fireplace. Abandoning all stealth Rose walked into the room.

“Are you hun-” she started.

Tommy jumped out of his skin. He dropped the glass, knocked over the bottle as he flew from his chair and had a hand on the holster before Rose had even closed her mouth properly. Rose jumped back and took cover behind the other chair.

“Good fuck, you don’t sneak up on a man like this,” her father rasped and dropped back into his seat.

“D’you want a sandwich?” Rose asked, still crouching behind the chair.

There was no answer until Rose was confident that she’d either be sent packing without a chance to even make food for herself _or_ had been forgotten about. She could hear him picking up the gin bottle and the glass.

“That’d be lovely.”

“Are you gonna shoot me when I come out?” She craned her head carefully over the back of the chair.

“No, Rosie,” her father gave a very dry laugh, a humorous cough, really. “I’m not going to shoot you. Not until after you’ve fed me, at least.”

Rose went into the kitchen, found bread, butter and some cold meat and assembled two sandwiches roughly the thickness of house bricks. She took them into the front room, passed one to Tommy and settled on the floor to be close to the fire with her own.

For a while they sat and chewed in silence.

“Any chance of a story?”

“Aye?” Rose looked up at her father, fairly certain she’d misheard him.

“Have you thought up any more?”

“I’ve one about horses,” she said shyly. “D’you really want to hear a story? Now?”

“If it’s no trouble.” Tommy reached down to retrieve the bottle and refill his glass.

“No trouble,” Rose said quickly. “None at all.”

Her father abandoned his chair and joined her on the floor, his back resting against the wall beside the fire.

“So…right…there’s this man, building a hut for himself to live in in the woods. He used to live in town before, but one night he got in from the pub and his children were gone; so he just walked away until he got to the woods.”

“Where’d his children get to?”

Rose looked over at her father and, just for one small moment, could imagine that he’d once been a child himself. The thought made the rug against her legs more scratchy somehow.

“He’s no idea. They just weren’t there anymore,” she said. “Anyway. One morning he comes out of the half-finished hut and there are four wild horses, beautiful horses, standing there, grazing. When he walks up to them, they don’t run away. And then they just stay. He finishes his hut and whenever he needs a load carried or a ride somewhere, he just whistles and one of the horses will come. At night he sits in front of his house and he talks to them and he doesn’t feel so alone. But-“

Rose glanced at Tommy, who was still leaning against the wall, eyes half-closed, but by no means appearing bored.

“- but then, one afternoon, the man finds a bottle of drink in the woods. Just sitting on a tree stump. So he takes it home and once he gets going he can’t stop and when the bottle’s more than half empty, he stumbles out of the hut and there’s one of the horses, just standing and looking at him…and he whacks it, because he doesn’t like the way it’s looking at him, punches it right in the nose. The next morning he feels terrible but when he walks outside, the horses are still there, just grazing like nothing’s happened. The man goes to get some apples for the horses but on the way back he finds another bottle. And it keeps happening. He keeps finding bottles in the woods and he keeps drinking them and he gets angrier and angrier and meaner and meaner, flogging the horses with branches of trees just because they’re there. But in the morning they’re always still outside.”

There was a soft clicking noise from the lighter.

“Then, one night, when the man’s already sleeping it off, he wakes up because the horses are screaming outside when he comes tumbling out of the hut, he can just see the tail of one of them disappearing into the woods…but the other three are still there, trembling and sweating. He searches the woods the next day, but he can’t find a sign of the horse. The next night, the screaming wakes him again, but this time he makes it out in time and sees a dark shape on one of the horses, digging the spurs into it and riding it off into the trees. He jumps on one of the two that are left but it won’t go. He spits and beats it, but it won’t go.”

Rose badly wanted a glass of water but she was afraid to stop now.

“So, the next morning he goes into the wood to look for the _drabani_. Because he’s certain what he’s seen on the horse was no ordinary thief. He walks through the woods for ages, but in the end he finds the drabani by the stream, filling bottles with water. And before he even says anything, she turns and she spits on the ground before him and she tells him: _I told you not to come and see me again._ ”

Her father seemed to sit up a little straighter suddenly.

“The man, he goes: _But Phuri Drabani_ , _what are you saying? You’ve never seen me before_ … but even as he’s saying it, he’s starting to think that she looks a little familiar and then he looks at the bottles she’s filled from the stream and the water inside them in slowly turning amber. _Have you been leaving the drink for me, Phuri Drabani,_ he asks. And she starts laughing, it makes him shiver all over. _Enjoyed it, have you_? she cackles and he nods and she waves him over and says: _Have one with me, for old times’ sake._ And he’s terrified now, so he drinks the glass down and then he runs on home, but as he’s running, he starts remembering, because there’s shadows running beside him now and they’re things he remembers. It’s getting dark and he can hear the drabani singing and he can hear his children crying and he hears the horses whinny and then he breaks through the trees around his hut…and…the horses are gone. But d’you know what he finds?”

“No,” Tommy said quietly, nearly in a whisper. “What does he find?”

“Two of his children, the oldest one and the littlest one, sitting on the ground before the hut, bruised and pale and so hungry they’re eating the grass. He calls out their names and they look up and suddenly they start screaming and pointing behind him, so he turns and there’s the shadows coming through the trees like a wave in the ocean and they knock him off his feet…and as he’s being ripped down into the earth he remembers everything.”

A log in the fire cracked and both of them flinched.

“What’s he remember?”

The bottle was not very full at all anymore.

“He remembers that he went to the drabani once before, when she was selling herbs at the market in town and he told her _The drink’s got me and I’m beating my children…help me_. And the drabani gave him a glass of tea and sang a spell and told him he’d get a chance to start over. Just the one. And he would have to be strong and remember the man he wanted to be. But then, on the way home, he went to the pub and so the drabani turned his children into wild horses.”

“But they still came back.”

“Yea.”

“Why did they?” her father asked, his face now nearly in the dark as the fire was slowly dying.

“Because…” Rose reached for the poker and scratched at the red-hot remains in the fire place, “…because he’d not raised them to be wild and so they didn’t know what to do without him.”

For the longest time there was just the crackle of the last bits of fire and the sound of the rain starting to come down outside. Rose was looking for faces in the dying embers, Tommy was staring up at the ceiling, possibly through it and into the bedroom above.

“You should go up and sleep,” he said finally.

“So should you,” Rose yawned.

“The chance’d be a fine thing.” Her father got to his feet a little unsteadily, held out his hand and pulled her up. “Off to bed, my little love.”

“Good night…”

Rose stepped over the abandoned plates on the floor and made for the stairs.

“Rosie?”

“Yea?”

“What happens to the man in the end?”

She turned. The room was getting so dark now she could not make out her father’s face.

“His memories eat him up,” she said softly. “Until he’s all gone.”


	7. Shipyard Encounters

At the furthest corner of the shipyard, aboard a beached knacker of a barge awaiting long overdue repairs that might very well never happen, a very small crew was preparing for a sea battle of epic proportions.

“Batten down the hatches, you bunch of salty bastards,” James roared from the top of the crumbling cabin. “Next man I spot with empty hands is going for a swim with the sharks!”

Billy and Rose, weighed down with length of dried out rope, scrambled across the deck, slipping in the drizzle.

“Ready the canon!” their captain commanded at top volume.

The canon was a dented barrel they’d managed to heave onto their vessel with extreme difficulty. It was now jacked up on a couple of bricks, waiting to be loaded with a huge wooden sinker. It took both Rose and Billy to lift the thing off the ground and they approached the canon slowly, cursing their lazy captain under their breaths.

“Spaniards portside! Lock and load, ye rotters!”

With one last massive effort, Rose and Billy dropped the cannonball into the barrel. It went in with more speed and weight than their construction could handle. The cannon dislodged from the bricks and crashed onto the deck, splintering the already fragile planks beneath it. The cannonball rolled out, disappeared over the side of the barge and straight into a tower of wooden crates holding empty bottles. The noise was terrific.

“Useless, the lotta ya,” James hopped off his perch and came running to the side of the barge. “Now, that’s not looking too good, this.”

Indeed it did not.

The crates had tumbled and the shards of broken bottles littered the place like freshly fallen snow. Rose scanned the yard and saw her uncle Charlie’s form approaching through the drizzle.

“Scram, youse,” she advised the boys, nodding towards the nearby wall dividing yard from street.

“Are you staying?” Billy asked, already halfway over. “Are you mad?”

“It’s grand,” Rose said hopping off the barge and heading to meet her uncle Charlie. “If he thinks it was just me, he won’t mind.”

“See ye, treacherous wench,” James called and disappeared over the wall behind Billy, and not a moment too soon.

“Sorry, uncle Charlie,” Rose called out as soon as he was within earshot.

“Orright, Rosie?” Her uncle surveyed the damage and whistled through his teeth. “How’d you manage this?”

“The cannonball got away,” she answered.

“A pirate, are you?”

“I was, anyway.” Rose smiled at him, watching as he tried to arrange his face into a suitably stern and irritated expression.

“Look at the state of the place,” he growled unconvincingly. “It’s a bloody miracle you’ve not cut yourself to ribbons. Wait here.”

Charlie disappeared behind a shed and came back with a shovel and a rake.

“Get rid of this,” he ordered. “And then come find me, I’ve something that’ll keep you out of trouble for a bit, Cap’n Shelby.”

“Aye-aye.” Rose saluted and took up the shovel.

It didn’t take her very long to dispose of the broken glass by shoveling and raking it into the cut; the rain even stopped, so it wasn’t altogether unpleasant. She took the tools back where they belonged and ambled across the yard to one of the storage sheds, looking for her uncle.

Wandering between the rows of shelves and crates holding god-knew-what, was a posh woman drinking gin.

Rose ducked behind a large wooden box before she could be seen. The woman was humming to herself, seemingly very content to be here, strutting around like she owned the place.

Rose was immediately irritated.

Women, especially nice-looking women drinking on their own to pass the time, usually had the intention of bothering her father; and when women bothered her father, the world was liable to tilt at a moment’s notice.

Keeping low to the ground Rose made her way back to the door, when she spotted something out of the corner of her eye that made her slow down.

Abandoned on top of a barrel sat a very nice bag.

Silently Rose crept across and crouched behind the barrel. She poked her head around the side and saw the women at the far end of the shed, looking out over the yard. Rose reached up and took the bag down, clicking it open and rifling through the contents at great speed. Lipstick, powder, a folder with something dull in it about horses, a very nice silvery case containing cigarettes and a lighter and…Rose checked over her shoulder and assured herself that the woman was still busy looking at whatever she was looking at…a money clip, fairly laden with cash.

Rose scoffed as she removed about half of the notes in it. Money clips, according to her auntie Ada, were the best way to spot a member of the bourgeoisie. People too good to bother with loose coins and so on. Rose shook her head. She emptied the cigarette box, save one, into her coat pocket, rolled up the notes and stuffed them down her sock, put the bag back and disappeared from the shed unnoticed.

As she rounded the corner she ran straight into her father, having a smoke with her uncle Charlie.

“Hello,” she said casually.

“All done?” her uncle asked.

“All done.”

“What’s all done?” Tommy asked, raising an eyebrow at Rose.

“Grace O’Malley here had a heavy artillery misfire,” Charlie said before Rose had a chance to open her mouth.

“How many times have you been told-“ her father rounded on her.

“It’s orright, Tommy,” Charlie interrupted calmly. “No harm done, aye, Rosie?”

“None,” she said quickly. “Not any. Not at all.”

“Place has never looked better,” her uncle chimed in cheerfully.

“The pair of you.” Tommy shook his head. “Is our visitor still about?”

“In that one over there.” Charlie nodded towards the scene of Rose’s robbery. “Right, come with me, you.”

Rose followed her uncle across the yard, looking over her shoulder to see her father disappear in direction of the posh woman. Everything inside her bristled.

“Who’s she?” Rose asked as they made their way towards her uncle’s live in shed.

“The cat’s mother.” Charlie jiggled the door and let her into the kitchen. “D’you want a cuppa tea, Rosie?”

“No, thanks,” she said. “I’ve got somewhere to be.”

“Well, pardon me for holding you up.” Her uncle Charlie reached up and produced a small parcel from the top of a cabinet. “If you find time in your busy schedule, I’ve got it on good authority that you’ll enjoy this.”

“Whose authority?” Rose asked, folding open the paper and removing a thinnish book, _Just William_. ”Do they let you into the bookshop if you can’t read?”

“Cheeky little…give it back then,” he growled. “I’ll see if your cousin Karl’ll appreciate it.”

“I’m only messing.” Rose flipped through the book.

“I know, Rosie girl.” Her uncle returned her smile.

“Karl can read it after me…hang on. Why am I getting presents?” Rose was suddenly deeply suspicious. “It’s not my birthday or-“

“So you don’t forget how to read til you get back to school,” Charlie interrupted. “And I did miss you coming round and smashing my yard to pieces. It’s a welcome home gift. A late one.”

“Oh.” Rose blushed a little. “I…uhm…thank you.”

“Right, off you go.” Charlie cleared his throat. “Somewhere to be and all.”

“Right. Yea. I see ye, uncle Charlie.”

“See you later, Rosie.”

#

Rose knocked on the door. There was no answer for so long she feared that no one was in, but then the coughing and scrabbling started on the other side.

“Coming…”

“No rush,” she called back.

There was some more coughing and a noise like a chair falling over, being stood up and falling over again, and then Archie Parsons opened the door, red-eyed and crumpled.

“Good afternoon, Mister Parsons.” Rose was feeling stupid and nervous at once.

“Little Miss Shelby,” Archie Parson’s made himself smile. “How’s your da?”

“Fine, thank you.” Rose took a deep breath. “I’ve got something for you.”

“Oh?”

Rose dug into her pocket and produced the rolled up notes she’d liberated less than an hour ago. Archie Parsons looked at the money as though he didn’t quite remember what is was or what it was for.

“We shouldn’t have scared you the other day,” Rose said shakily. “I’m sorry. This is for…uhm… for you.”

Judging from Archie Parson’s face he was not at all sure what Rose was talking about; so she simply took his hand and put the money in, closing his fingers around it.

“I’m really sorry, Mister Parsons,” she said again.

“That…ah…that’s alright, little Miss Shelby.”

For a moment they just looked at each other, unsure of how to proceed, until Rose couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Have a good rest of your day, Mister Parsons,” she blurted and dashed off down the stairs, leaving Archie Parsons bewildered and many, many pounds richer on his doorstep.

#

A couple of evenings later, Rose was curled up in front of the fire, reading _Just William_ , pleased to notice it was just as good if not better the second time around. All featured adults were basically imbeciles, whose mission in life seemed to be the prevention of any worthwhile activity a child might undertake. She'd not read a more truthful work of literature in all her life.

Upstairs Frances was putting Charlie to bed, which was going to take a while, so when Rose was done with the biscuit she was currently eating, there would be no problem in procuring another. And possibly another.

“Lovely,” she said out loud, because it seemed like the right thing to do.

You had to know a good time while it was happening, otherwise there was no point at all.

She crammed the remainder of her ginger nut into her mouth, got up and went in search for more. To safeguard them from her brother’s pilfering tendencies, the biscuits had been moved to the top shelf in the kitchen. Rose was balancing on the edge of the sink when the back door opened and her uncle Arthur appeared in the kitchen, swaying like a sailor on the high seas.

“D’you want a biscuit?” Rose asked pleasantly. “There’s loads.”

“Where’s Finn?” The words seemed to be taking far too much effort.

“Dunno.”

“Ah, fuck it.” Her uncle leaned back against the open door and produced a thick envelope from his jacket pocket. “Geddown. Here.”

Rose hopped off the sink and took the proffered envelope.

“Run this to Charlie’s for me, aye?”

“Are you really, really, really drunk, Uncle Arthur?” Rose cocked her head at him curiously.

“That I am.” Her uncle looked as though he might fall on his face any second.

“I’m not allowed out after dark,” Rose pointed out.

“It’s orright. You’ll only be a minute. You’re fast, aren’t you?”

“If I get caught, I tell him you made me.”

“You tell’im.” Arthur was already feeling his way out the door. “You tell’im I had you at gunpoint, Rosie.”

#

Being out in the night after what seemed like years and years left Rose breathless with glee. She raced down the street, cut through an alleyway and made for the shipyard at top speed, relishing the cover of the darkness, the deserted streets and the sounds drifting out of the pubs and the dark corners.

She climbed the wall to the yard and was about to run across to her uncle Charlie’s quarters when something odd stopped her dead in her tracks.

There appeared to be music playing.

For a minute or two Rose stood very still, listening carefully to make sure she wasn’t mistaken. The music, she was sure of it, was coming from the shed closest to her.

Acutely aware of the crunch of her boots on the ground, Rose crept towards the sound.

_What’ll I do when you’re far away and I am blue…_

Rose stopped herself from humming along. Silently she slid along the wall until she found a crack and pressed her eye to it. The scene that met her, framed by jagged metal, was almost too strange to be believed. Someone had set up a very nice dinner table for two in the middle of the shed. With candles and white table cloth and long-stemmed glasses. And next to the table, just within her field of vision, her father was dancing with a woman Rose didn’t recognise.

_What’ll I do with just a photograph to tell my troubles to…_

Rose hadn’t seen her father dance since the wedding. She’d been furious that day; furious at the stupid dress they made her wear, furious at the pomp of it and the cake that was taller than her, furious with herself for sitting straight and picking at her food when all she wanted to do was turn the table upside down and scream.

_When I’m alone with only dreams of you that won’t come true…what’ll I do…_

The woman was resting her head against Tommy’s collarbone, he had his chin somewhere near the top of her head, they looked like they were dancing in their sleep. The song was sad and they were in a messy, dank shed by the cut, but they couldn’t have looked more graceful if they’d been in a ballroom. Rose knew she was witnessing something beautiful, but she was clenching her jaw so hard she feared her teeth might break.

_What’ll I do with just a photograph to tell my troubles to…_

Why was it that Rose was forever the one watching through the crack in the wall, snatching bits and pieces of her father, why the bloody hell was that? Rose angrily swallowed down the rising lump in her throat. Even when she was in the same room with him she was on the other side of the wall.

_When I’m alone with only dreams of you that won’t come true…_

They danced away from the table and Rose couldn’t see them anymore.

_What’ll I do…what’ll I do…_

Rose wanted to bust into the shed and demand a dance of her own. She wanted to shout that there was not enough time for everyone as it was and there was no room for anyone new; to cry and rage and be held until it passed.

_What’ll I do…_

She wanted to shout at him that she was the one who’d spend hours watching the top of the street in case the war was over and he was coming home. That when he’d found her sleeping on the floor in front of his bed it hadn’t been because of her nightmares but because of his. That there was never a good time…never any bloody time…

_What’ll I do…_

Rose walked home.


	8. The Red Block

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an excursion goes as wrong as it possibly could.

Rose and James were sitting on the wall by the canal, waiting for Helen and Alice to emerge from the shop with whatever sweets their combined funds would buy.

“My brother says the mad fella from the red block’s after making a chicken coup up on the roof,” James said.

“Won’t they fall off?” Rose asked.

“My brother says he’s got more contraband in it than birds.” James brother worked as a delivery boy and allegedly knew everything that was going on.

“What sort of contraband?” Rose was pleased she didn’t stumble over the unfamiliar word.

“Cigarettes,” James said casually. “And guns, probably. And drink.”

“Ours is full of all of that,” Rose said unimpressed.

“Yea, right. But you don’t get to touch it, do you?”

“No…” Rose admitted.

Across the road Alice and Helen came flying out of the shop, nearly getting run down by a passing cart.

“On the red block, he reckons?” Rose chewed her thumbnail pensively.

The tenement at Artillery Square, which didn’t owe its name to a fancy paint job but rather the fact that no one had been arsed to paint the red bricks once they’d finished building it, was well within her boundaries.

They didn’t discuss it any further, but as the afternoon went on, they drifted nearer and nearer the red block until they were somehow on the fourth floor and so close to the roof that it’d been pure laziness not to make it all the way.

The chicken coup was a rather impressive structure made from all sorts of scavenged garbage.

“You know,” Alice announced once she’d walked around it a couple of times, “we could make one like that for a hide out on our roof, easy. D’you reckon your uncle Charlie will let us have scrap metal from the yard, Rosie?”

“Curly will,” Rose said, playing with the latch of the coup absentmindedly.

It sprung open nearly by accident.

“Dare you to look inside,” said James.

Rose looked over to the door, where Helen stood as look out, keeping an ear and eye on the stairs, and slipped into the coup.

“Those birds ‘ve seen better days,” she said drily, surveying the listless, mangy chickens scratching the bare floor.

“Aw, the poor fuckers.” Alice was peeking through the open hatch. “Should we liberate them?”

“How’ll we get them down?” James asked.

“There’s boxes in here,” Rose called out, already levering up a lid. “Oh, good shite!”

“What?” James was squeezing through the hatch now. “Bloody hell. See, I told you.”

Alice was in the coup as well now and all three looked down at the three small handguns, cosy in their bed of straw.

“Are they loaded?” James asked.

“How should I know?” Rose whispered.

“You’re the one going on about how yours is full of guns,” James said pointedly.

Rose rolled her eyes and reached carefully into the crate, pulling out one of the weapons slowly, trying to remember what exactly the men did when they flipped the chambers out. Having a reputation to uphold could be arduous at times. She drew back the hammer and whacked the side of the revolver a bit.

“Be careful, right?” Alice said breathlessly.

The chamber flipped sideways and Rose nearly dropped the gun. It was empty. James started digging through the straw.

“He’ll have bullets in there, too, wait and see,” he said.

Just then, Helen whistled from the stairway and for a brief moment the three children in the chicken coup froze in terror before frantically starting to replace everything they’d moved. Rose couldn’t get the chambers to go back in and while she was swearing and fumbling, Helen whistled again and the door slammed shut.

“She’s off,” Alice whispered frantically. “We’ve got to go!”

“I can’t get the-“

A salvo of what sounded like twenty times as many firecrackers as they’d had at the bonfire went off somewhere not too far below.

“There’s someone shooting down there,” James shouted uselessly.

Alice, with a sudden flash of inspiration, leapt to the hatch, pulled it shut, reached through a small hole in the wall and dropped the latch from the outside.

“What ‘re you doin’?” Rose hissed.

“We can’t go down,” Alice whispered. “If someone comes up, they won’t look in here when it’s locked, sure they won’t?”

They crouched low between the frantic chickens and listened. There were some short claps of single shots.

“It’s only music,” Rose muttered to herself. “It’s only a dance band coming…it’s only….”

Then there was nothing.

Then still nothing.

“Let’s go,” James whispered urgently. “Open the hatch, Alice, and let’s go.”

They crept from the coup, crawling on all fours towards the low balustrade surrounding the roof. Rose peered over it and saw the street deserted.

“Everyone’s go-“ a figure rounded the corner and Rose ducked down.

“William Gardner’s is on the third floor,” James said almost soundlessly next to her ear. “His mum’ll let us in if we knock, she will.”

There was another shot and a man was roaring down below now. Without discussing it any further, they made a dash for the door, barely registering another gunshot ringing out on the street.

They flew down the stairs three at a time, making the third floor in no time at all. Breathing raggedly, they ran on and rounding the corner of the third floor’s corridor James, who was in the lead by a nose, slammed full speed into one of two men peering down the stairwell.

Rose and Alice stopped dead, watching as the man staggered, turned and aimed a pistol right at James’ forehead. He put a finger to his lips, unnecessarily.

“What’s on the roof?” he asked.

He sounded like the movie stars in the talkies and looked, to quote Alice, like he’d just smelled that he’d stepped in dog shite. Rose’s heart started hammering in such a way, she thought she was having a heart attack.

“Chickens,” James croaked.

For second Rose was sure the man was going to shoot James and all of them probably, but instead he reached out and picked off one of the scrappy feathers stuck in James’ hair.

“This fuckin’ place…” he muttered and jerked his head for them to move on.

They passed him, their backs pressed against the wall and James started to knock on the Gardner’s door as loudly as he dared.

The man didn’t hang around to watch them go in, he was off down the stairs.

After a felt eternity, the door opened a crack and Missis Gardner, glassy eyed and shaking, reached out and pulled them inside. She’d no sooner shut the door than a racket of shots and whistles and shouts broke loose on the street.

“Thank you,” Rose managed, looking up at Missis Gardner like she was the blessed virgin herself. “Thanks very much, Missis Gardner.”

Missis Gardner only now registered just who exactly she’d let in, but before she could say anything William Gardner, who’d been keeping watch at the window in the next room, burst in.

“They’re after arresting Mister Shelby,” he said breathless with excitement. “He shot one right in the fa-“

He stared at Rose and his jaw dropped a little but she was already pushing past him, racing to the window.

The street was far from deserted now, there were coppers everywhere and by the wall of the building she could make out her father’s familiar form doing his best to lay waste to a small cluster of them, his fists swinging wildly. Rose frantically fumbled with the lock on the window, unsure of what exactly she would do when she got it open, but before she got anywhere with it, Missis Gardner’s arms wrapped around her and pulled her away.

“You stay away from the window,” she gasped as she struggled to contain Rose’s efforts to get away from her.

“But-“

“We’ll take you home once they’ve gone.” Missis Gardner dropped onto the sofa, Rose falling heavily on top of her. “But you’ll do no good getting amongst it now.”

“But I-“

“If you think I’m stupid enough to let you out there now, you’ve got another thing coming,” Missis Gardner snapped. “I’ll not have that family of yours coming round here blaming us if you got hurt.”

“They won’t, Missis Gardner,” Rose implored. “You have my word, I promise, look…we’ve witnesses.”

“Some witnesses,” Missis Gardner said bitterly. “You’re staying here and that’s that. William, lock the door and bring me the key. Don’t glare at me, Rose Shelby, it’s for the best. Yours and mine.”

#

Missis Gardner made them stay put until every last copper was gone and business on the street was starting to resume as usual. When she finally unlocked the door, she sent James and Alice off on their own, but insisted on walking Rose not just to the corner of Watery Lane but all the way to the door. While this was a pain, Rose didn’t blame her. She’d sheltered a member of the Shelby family from harm and it was only fair that she wanted them to know about it. Missis Gardner’s lot was none too light, so any chance to improve the situation had to be grabbed with both hands.

Rose was nearly delirious with the sheer effort of keeping herself together. She was reasonably confident that her father had not been murdered, after all, he’d looked in good form when the coppers had come for him.

That said, she was well aware that being arrested could well lead to some damage, if you were lucky enough to be let go after they were done with you. And if William Gardner was to be believed and her father had really shot a man in the face in broad daylight, which seemed like a stupid thing to do, he might not be let go at all.

Missis Gardner’s walking pace was painfully slow, but Rose forced herself to match it. To run off and leave her after she’d done her such a good turn would be unbecomingly rude, even for a Shelby.

Especially for a Shelby.

When Missis Gardner finally knocked at number 6, Rose felt as though she might float away. Her aunt Polly answered the door.

“What now?” she asked exasperated when she saw Rose standing very still next to a rather nervous looking woman.

“I’m just bringing your Rose home,” Missis Gardner said as gamely as she could.

“Why?”

Rose craned her head trying to peer past her aunt into the house. She could hear voices from the next room, but she couldn’t be sure who it was. The house did not seem to be in a state of emergency, however.

“There was some trouble at our flats.” Missis Gardner looked at Polly evenly. “Your Rose and her friends were up on our floor and knocked, so I kept them in til things calmed down.”

Polly shot Rose a look and Rose gave a nod in the affirmative.

“Well, thank you very much, Missis…”

“Gardner.”

“…Missis Gardner. For looking out for our Rose.” Polly extended a hand, most likely to press a folded token of appreciation into Missis Gardner’s own.

“It was nothing,” Missis Gardner said quietly. “We’re practically neighbours and if neighbours don’t look out for one another, what’s the world coming to?”

“Quite right,” Polly’s tone was a little clipped.

Rose ran out of patience.

“Thanks very much, again, Missis Gardner,” she said. “And to William, as well.”

Missis Gardner gave her a tight smile and Polly, finally, stepped aside and motioned for Rose to come in.

She didn’t wait to hear if the two women would exchange any more tense pleasantries; instead she dashed for the next room, her heart now going so hard she couldn’t breathe properly.

“Is me-“ she stopped dead, startled by the strangely peaceful scene in front of her.

Her uncles Finn and Arthur were there, and Johnny Dogs, her aunt Ada was sitting staring out of the window and by the fire her father stood, Charlie on his hip, seemingly mid-sentence about something perfectly ordinary. Rose stared at her father from across the room, unable to see any obvious signs of injury.

“Orright, Rosie?” he asked.

“Are you?” she asked back.

“Yes, of course…” Tommy’s expression changed from merely a little surprised to something closer to alarmingly suspicious.

“Dad sold a horse,” Charlie announced, smiling at her.

“What?” Rose bristled, completely confused now.

“He got three shillings for a two-shilling horse,” her little brother explained.

“What horse?” Rose sank down onto the arm of her aunt Ada’s chair.

“Yea, what horse?” Charlie turned to his father and grinned.

“A nice, fast, black one,” Tommy said, returning Charlie’s grin before giving Rose a pointed look over her brother’s head.

“Well done,” Rose said lamely.

“What’s keeping Pol at the door?” Her aunt Ada asked her without looking up.

“It’s…” Rose’s voice trailed off.

It suddenly occurred to her that perhaps having been at the red block was not something to be advertised, but before she could come up with a plausible answer, Polly was in the room and looking more than a little put out.

“A Missis Gardner,” she told Ada briskly. “From the red flats.”

Rose became fascinated with a loose button on her coat, but she could feel her father’s eyes burning into the top of her head.

“Do a job for me, Charlie?” he asked. “Go and find me my glasses, they’re somewhere upstairs in my room.”

“No problem,” Charlie said solemnly and sprinted from the room.

“Hang on, I’ll help you look-“ Rose jumped up but her aunt Polly stepped in, blocking her path to the door.

“Charlie’s on it, aren’t you Charlie,” she said sweetly.

And Charlie, oblivious and smiley, ran up the stairs on his mission.

“And what’d Missis Gardner have to say, ay?” Tommy asked Polly.

“She just-“ Rose started to speak vaguely in the direction of her father’s shoes.

“I’m not asking you,” he interrupted. “Pol?”

“She’s alright,” Polly said dismissively. “Just covering her arse and making sure we know she’s been of service.”

“What service?”

“Opening her door and keeping that one here out of harm’s way. Let her in when she knocked.” Polly lit a cigarette. “A regular saint, that opportunistic cow.”

Rose watched her father’s shoes come closer until he was right in front of her.

“So?” he asked in the quiet tone that tended to herald troubles.

“So what?” Rose muttered.

“What business d’you have at the red flats?”

“Looking at the chicken house on the roof.”

Behind her, Johnny Dogs snorted a laugh.

“Look at me.” Rose made herself look up and meet Tommy’s eyes. “Think carefully and answer me again. Last chance.”

“We were looking,” Rose said very slowly and clearly, like she was talking to someone thick, “at the chicken house on the roof.”

The slap was not entirely unexpected, nor was it as hard as it could have been. Rose willed her eyes to stay dry with mediocre success.

“Go and see for yourself, if you don’t believe me,” she shouted at her father. “There’s a fucking chicken house on the fucking roof of the fucking red block and I’ve done nothing at all wrong, so fuck off hitting me!”

“Are you looking for a hiding?” Tommy said menacingly.

“No. Did you shoot a man in the face?” Rose couldn’t quite feel her hands and feet anymore.

“What?”

“William Gardner said he saw-“

“Never mind about William bloody Gardner,” her father cut her off. “Who d’you think you’re talking to?”

“I told Frances I was going out…” Rose held up her hand, counting off the rules on her trembling fingers, “…I was close to home, with people I know, in the middle of the fucking day. I did everything you told me to do and now-“

“I can’t find them.”

Everyone in the room turned to see Charlie lingering in the doorway.

“They’re not up there,” he said apologetically. “Your glasses.”

“That’s orright, Charlie,” Tommy said in as reassuring a tone as he could manage. “I must’ve left them someplace else.”

“Sorry.”

“Never mind,” Tommy said. “Will you go see Frances for a minute?”

“Why?”

“Go on.”

Charlie grudgingly disappeared from view and Rose turned back to he father, this time matching his furious glare without problem.

“Polly?” Tommy didn’t take his eyes off his daughter as he spoke.

“Yes?”

“This one’s going with Michael tomorrow.”

Rose’s head whipped around just in time to catch her aunt Polly’s minute nod.

“Going where?” she asked, panic bubbling up from the pit of her stomach.

“On the road,” her father said. “It’s for your own good. I should’ve sent you off with Esme and the kids in the first place.”

“I’m not-“

“Not another word,” Tommy cut her off. “You’ll go tomorrow and you’ll stay upstairs til Polly fetches you, if you know what’s good for you.”

Rose turned on her heel and thundered up the stairs.   



	9. Feverdreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some plans can work a little too well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those of you in need of some sweetness, prepare to be satisfied.

Rose sat on the side of her bed, jogging her knees up and down furiously. There was no way, none at all, that she was going to be packed off on the road.

It could not happen. Not again.

Two years earlier she’d been smaller and stupider and when Johnny Dogs came to collect her for the Ederlezi fire on Easter Sunday, she'd gone with him without a second thought.

When she’d been told she’d be spending the night she’d been pleased, like a fucking ejit, because she got to share the vardo with Sharon Lee and Anna Lee and Ronja Lee, who were great fun to hang around with. She wasn't all that worried that her father hadn't showed up at the fire, even though he'd promised. He'd been held up with something, they'd told her; it wasn't hard to believe.

It wasn’t until the kumpania packed up the next morning and started moving in the opposite direction of home that Rose had asked Johnny Dogs, who was setting off into the direction _of_ home, whether she shouldn’t better come with him.

“Not to worry, Rosie.”

“Your da’s coming to collect you at the next stop, Rosie.”

“It’s kushti, Rosie.”

The fucking liar.

She’d ended up being on the road for close to five months.

Disposed off and forgotten and with no idea what she’d done to deserve any of it.

It hadn’t been all bad. There’d been fairs and fires and a horde of children to keep her busy. They’d eaten berries and hedgehogs and rabbits, read each other fortunes which never came true and swum in freezing rivers. She forgot all she’d learned in school and learned to speak proper Romani instead. There were times when Rose nearly enjoyed herself; but as soon as she’d any time to think at all, all the parts of her body would start to hurt with longing for her family.

Of course, when she was finally delivered back to the big house, there wasn’t much left in terms of family. Only her father and Charlie and Frances and, once in a blue moon, Lizzie and Johnny Dogs. Everyone else seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

And now, when they’d reappeared just as suddenly, he – that bastard, that fucking bastard – was going to banish her again.

Rose walked across the room and opened the window with every intention of climbing out and leaving; but as she looked along Watery Lane she realised she’d be lucky to make it three doors down. There was a Blinder in every second doorway, standing watch.

They weren’t easy to see, because the rain had settled in and was blurring the world, but they were there nonetheless. She knew they weren’t there because of her, they were guarding the house from the men in the wedding picture.

While it was comforting to know that no one would ever be able to get close, it also meant that it was impossible to get away.

Rose went back to her bed, pulled the blanket over her head and gripped her pillow between her teeth. She would think of a plan once the tears were out of the way.

#

When the house had fallen silent for the night, or at least the upstairs of it, Rose got out of bed and arranged her pillow under the blanket in a rough body shape. She took off her stockings and crept across the room once more and eased open the window.

“What are you doing?” Charlie was propped up on his elbows.

“Nothin’,” she whispered. “Shut up and go to sleep.”

“Are you running away?”

“Just bloody-“

“Please don’t run away,” Charlie whispered tearfully, sitting up now.

Rose was taken aback. The way she treated the poor little bastard, he should have been dancing for joy at the thought of being rid off her.

“I’m not,” she said.

“I don’t want you to go.” Her brother was very, very close to crying now.

“I’m _not_ ,” Rose repeated. “But…listen. Stop bawling. Listen. If you don’t want me to go away, you need to do something for me.”

Charlie nodded frantically.

“When I’ve gone out,” Rose motioned to the window, “you’ve got to close the window behind me but not lock it. Don’t lock it. So I can get back in. Understand?”

“But where are you going?”

“Don’t lock the window, Charlie. Right?”

“Orright.”

Rose sat on the window sill, the front of her nightie immediately drenched with the cold rain. She looked up at the thick dark sky and, satisfied that the horrible weather was there to stay, felt for the drainpipe. Once she was confident that she had as good a grip on it as she could hope for, she swung over and started shimmying up towards the roof.

It wasn’t far, but it was slippery.

She made it nonetheless and settled down with her back against the chimney, the roof tiles freezing underneath her bare feet. Rose held her face into the sharp, biting wind and waited.

Rose lost track of time, but she guessed she’d been on the roof for about two hours when she started feeling a budding ache in her wrists and elbows and knees.

She smiled to herself with chattering teeth. There were still enough hours of night left for the bud to flower.

#

When the sky started to fade from black to grey, Rose awkwardly tilted herself forward and slid on her belly to the edge of the roof. She’d been up and down the roof enough times in her life to know what to do, even through the thick fog wafting around her head.

Charlie had not locked the window and Rose half-fell into the room, frightening the life out of him.

“Go back to sleep,” she croaked.

Rose took off her soaked nightie, somewhat dried herself with a jumper she found on the floor, put on the dry night dress she’d left on the foot of her bed and rolled under the covers.

By the time Frances came in to wake Charlie, Rose was burning up like a furnace.

#

“…telling you, she’s not fit to go anyplace, Thomas.”

Rose tried to open her eyes but found her lids were trapped under a cloth. Breathing was hard work and her ears were agony. There was a heavy hand on her head, fingers gently scratching at her skull.

“I hope you’re pleased with yourself,” she heard her aunt Polly say.

As she drifted back to sleep, Rose wondered whether the words were meant for her or her father.

And whether her aunt had any way of knowing that she was indeed very pleased with herself.

#

Someone was trying to make her drink something terrible. Rose had her mouth clamped shut and tried to turn her face away, but her neck was stiff and there where hands on either side of her head, keeping her in place. She no longer felt pleased with herself, she felt thoroughly terrible.

The cup was at her lips and the bitterness with it, making her cry.

“It’s orright…” It was the voice her father usually reserved for spooked horses. “It tastes bad, but it’s orright. It’ll make it better.”

Rose gagged and some of the hideous liquid got up her nose.

“I know…” Smokey smelling, scratchy fabric was wiping gently at her face. “But it’ll give you dreams of the keshalyi and you’ll wake up good as new, I promise. Just a little more, aye, just a little.”

Rose stilled, felt the medicine scrape down the inside of her throat and waited for her dreams of the good faeries.

#

_Rose was small enough to be able to fit under the chair in the front room if she curled herself up tightly. A man she’d never seen before was in the chair opposite, watching her with his huge eyes._

_“Will you come out?” he asked._

_She shook her head decisively._

_“Why not?”_

_She simply rolled herself a little tighter. Her uncle Finn was lingering in the doorway, with someone else she didn’t know. The house was full of strangers._

_“She’s pretending she’s an egg,” he said helpfully. “She does it all the time.”_

_“An egg, aye?”_

_The strange men had come in the morning and everyone had been going spare since, singing, crying, laughing, drinking, hugging…Rose thought it best to stay an egg until things returned to normal._

_The man got up and left._

_Good._

_Her aunt Polly had fairly thrown Rose at him when he appeared at the front door, but he’d had his hands full with her auntie Ada, so Rose had managed to get away. She listened to him walk around upstairs for a minute, heard the stairs creak and then he was back in the room with an armful of pillows and blankets from the beds. He dropped them on the rug in front of the empty fireplace and started arranging them in the roundish shape._

_Rose watched silently, as the man stood and appraised his efforts, moved a pillow a little more to one side and nodded, pleased with what he saw. He carefully stepped into the circle and curled himself tightly in amongst the pillows. Rose waited. Nothing more happened._

_“What’re you doin’?” she asked after a while._

_“_ _Being an egg,” he replied pleasantly, still perfectly rolled up._

_“In a nest?”_

_“Yea.”_

_Rose watched a little longer._

_“D’you want to come in?” he asked. “It’s nice.”_

_Very slowly Rose crawled out from under her chair and over to the nest. It did look nice. She resumed her egg shape as far from the big egg as the nest would allow._

_The eggs lay in the nest._

_“Can eggs eat?” the big egg asked after a while._

_“No,” the little egg said solemnly. “They’ve no mouths.”_

_“Of course.”_

_The eggs were silent for a while, listening to the shouts and singing outside on the street. The whole of Watery Lane had gone daft, it seemed._

_“_ _We can hatch,” the little egg said suddenly. “We’ll have beaks then.”_

_“Should we?”_

_“What’s to eat?”_

_“I’ve some chocolate in the coat over there.”_

_“What sort?”_

_“_ _What d’you mean?” The big egg seemed confused._

_“With things in it? Or normal?”_

_“Oh. Normal.”_

_“Let’s hatch.”_

_They unfurled themselves awkwardly, sitting up and shaking off the eggshells._

_“Are we birds now?”_

_Rose looked over at him. It was rare for grown-ups to ask such sensible questions._

_“It’ll be hard to eat chocolate with wings,” he pointed out politely._

_“We can be people.”_

_“Sure now?” “_

_Yea.”_

_“Good stuff. Hang on…”_

_He got out, went over to where he’d hung his coat earlier and dug a bar of chocolate from the pocket. Back in the nest he peeled it, carefully broke off what seemed like an unreasonably large chunk and handed it to Rose. She couldn’t make up her mind whether to eat it slowly or scarf it down._

_“What’s your name?” she asked, when half the chocolate was gone._

_“Tommy.”_

_“I’m Rose.”_

_“_ _Nice to meet you, Rose.”_

_Rose nibbled some more, trying to turn the square of chocolate into a circle._

_“Me da’s called Tommy,” she said. “Thomas.”_

_“Ay?”_

_She looked at him for a while. He was sitting very still. Maybe he looked a little like the Tommy in the picture her aunt Polly had put upstairs by Rose’s bed. It was hard to tell._

_“Are you him?”_

_“I am.” He was watching her carefully._

_“Are you Finn’s da, too?”_

_“No,” he said. “I’m his big brother.”_

_“Are you auntie Ada’s big brother, too?”_

_“That’s right.”_

_“But you’re my da?”_

_He cleared his throat, like the chocolate had gotten stuck._

_“Yea,” he said croakily. “Is that orright?”_

_Rose thought about this. He’d made a nest and brought chocolate. You couldn’t hope for better._

_“That’s orright,” she said. “D’you want to be eggs again?” “_

_I’d like that, Rosie.”_

_The eggs lay side by side in the nest…_ Rose woke with a start and sat up bleary-eyed and sweaty and found the room full of breaths.

Charlie’s from the bed across and someone else’s from the floor next to her bed. Slowly, holding onto the side of the bed, she craned her boiling head, squinting in the dark of the room. Her father lay stretched out on the floor, his head on one of the ugly embroidered cushions from downstairs.

Rose looked at him for a long while before she lay back down and went back to sleep.

#

She woke again, less hot, but with an angry jagged rock trapped inside her chest, making her cough and sputter.

“Up you come…” Tommy appeared out of nowhere, his hands under her arms, pulling her from the pillow. “There you go, my little love, forward a bit."

Something incredibly disgusting fell from Rose’s mouth onto the blanket. Her father wordlessly got rid off it with a rag from somewhere beneath the bed and helped her drink some water.

“Better?”

Rose nodded.

Tommy carefully lowered her back onto the pillow and something in the gentleness of everything and the fact that he was here in the middle of the day sent a shiver of fear down her spine.

“Am I dying?” she croaked.

“No, Rosie,” he smiled. “You’re not dying.”

“I didn’t think it’d work this well…” Rose’s voice trailed off, she felt like all her inside was carpet.

“Sleep a bit more, aye?”

“I climbed on the roof,” Rose whispered. “In the rain.”

She waited for the silence to turn menacing, but it didn’t.

“To make yourself sick?” her father asked after a very long time.

“Yea…” Rose closed her eyes to keep her tears in. “So…so…so you couldn’t...”

“Oh, Rosie,” Tommy sighed. “It’d only’ve been for a little while.”

“It wasn’t last time.”

There were dark, stormy waves crashing across her father’s eyes.

“I know.” He reached out and brushed her matted hair out of her face. “But I wasn’t well, things weren’t good, Rosie. You were much, much better off-“

“You let Charlie stay.” Rose managed to get it out before she started to cry too hard to say anymore.

“Rosie…” There was a distinct cracking in Tommy’s voice now. “Listen, Rosie, listen to me. Charlie was too little. He doesn’t remember any of the things, the bad things, that were going on, but you would’ve seen Rose and you would’ve remembered… I couldn’t have it on my conscience.”

She couldn’t stop crying. Once, on the road, she’d seen a river overflow from its bed, ripping anything with it that wasn’t rooted deep enough in the ground. It felt like she has one of those inside her now, bursting out.

“What…what’s…that?” she sobbed.

“What’s which?” her father asked.

“Conscience…”

This time the sigh seemed to come from the core of the earth rather than out of her father’s body.

“It means that even though I knew you’d hate me for it and it was ripping my insides apart, I had to send you away,” Tommy said softly. “Because even that was better than what might’ve happened otherwise.”

Rose was so stunned that her tears started to subside.

“Are they that bad?” she asked after a while. “The rat catchers?”

“Yea, they are.” Her father was holding her hand in both of his now, his thumb running over knuckles slowly.

“I thought…” Rose felt her cheeks burn with a new kind of heat entirely “I’ll go. Orright? I’ll go. I’m sorry. I thought…” fresh tears were starting now “…I thought you didn’t want…”

She couldn’t finish.

“Shhh…it’s orright.” Tommy kept hold of her hand. “When you’re well we’ll see, my little love. It’ll get better, you’ll see. It’ll get better.”


	10. Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose gets better, things get better and plans are made.

“You’re daft as a fucking brush, Ro’.” Finn was shaking his head as he was shuffling cards. “You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck.”

“Lay off,” she grumbled.

“No, I don’t think I will. Split it?” Rose split the deck and Finn started to deal the cards onto her quilt. “This one’s for the history books.”

Rose made a face at him, but it was mainly to keep herself from grinning.

A very odd thing had happened. Everyone in the family knew what she’d done and no one appeared to be angry with her. Sure, they had given her endless shite about it, but they’d also all of them made it a point to appear by her bedside (or, in Finn’s case, on her bed) to lavish her with attention.  
Rose had been brought books and sweets and her cousin Karl had presented her with a dozen cockroaches in a jam jar, which turned out to be surprisingly hypnotic to watch in their tireless pursuit to find an exit.

Her uncle Arthur, who seemed largely unavailable these days, had come up to drunkenly ruffle her hair and called her a “callous little bastard” with so much affection, she’d very nearly cried.

There had been absolutely no retribution.

Her aunt Polly had even gone so far as to claim that Rose’s night on the roof had not been the root cause of her illness.

“There’s only so much heartsickness a person can take,” she’d told Rose. “You could’ve stayed in your bed all warm and dry that night and you’d’ve still woken up with a raging fever. Some things can’t be kept in, they’ll make a passage out for themselves one way or another.”

While Rose was not convinced, there was no denying that she felt…better. She’d been in bed for the better part of a week and was still coughing a little and a bit short of breath, but it was as if the giant hand constantly clenching her insides in an iron grip had somehow disappeared. Weirder still, she’d been so used to the tightness in her guts, she only really knew it had been there now that it was gone.

Rose couldn’t grasp what exactly had shifted, but it seemed to have taken almost all of her rage at the world with it.

Even Charlie didn’t seem to be quite so irritating anymore. He was certainly an apt steward and could be down to the kitchen and back with a biscuit in 65 seconds flat, she’d timed him. He had not grassed on her either, not even – as he proudly pointed out to her – when the doctor had been called and asked if anyone in the house had an idea what had brought this on. And, if Rose was perfectly honest, there was something very nice about having someone so completely convinced that the sun shone out of her arse.

“D’you know Bonnie Gold?” Finn asked, picking up and shaking his head in disgust at his hand.

“His da’s terrifying,” Rose said, slamming a Queen down with relish.

“Fuck off…” Finn groaned. “You’ve a fucking deck up your sleeve, haven’t ye?”

Rose flapped her arms vigorously to prove him wrong.

“Unbelievable… anyway, they’ve set up a fight for him, grand affair at the King’s Hall.” Finn picked up again to no avail. “You know how he’s not very big, Bonnie?”

“I’d say a welterweight, at most,” Rose said gravely.

“Spot on,” Finn said, shaking his head in amusement. “Anyway, the fella he’s fighting is fucking enormous in comparison. They even call him Goliath.”

“He must’ve made weight though, surely? Can’t be that much bigger.” Rose neatly deposited a trio of nines on the pile between them.

“I’m never shuffling again,” Finn announced. “I’m clearly useless at it. But yea, anyway, you’re mistaken. He looks twice his size. Arms like bloody anacondas. It’ll be a massacre.”

“Are you goin’?” Rose asked.

“Everyone’s going,” Finn finally managed to unload a small part of his hand.

“Ha!” Rose slammed her last two cards down and raised her arms in victory. “Cough up. When’s the fight?”

“Friday.” Finn dug two ten penny coins from his pocket. “Two-up for it?”

“Orright.”

 They took a coin each and silently flipped them into the air. There was no need to call a side; Rose was always tails, Finn was always heads, it was a universally acknowledged truth and had been for years. They watched the coins land on the blanket.

“Ah, fuck.” Rose gave Finn the money back. “Friday?”

“Yea.”

“Does that mean everyone’ll be off their chops on Saturday still?”

“Arthur def’nitely will be. What’s it matter though?” Finn asked innocently. “What’s on Saturday?”

“Piss off,” Rose pulled a pillow from behind her back and tried to hit him over the head with it.

“Why? What’s wrong?” Finn dodged the pillow and fell out of the bed.

Rose jumped out and on top of him, fruitlessly trying to pin him down.

“Frances, Rose is getting out of bed,” her uncle shouted before flipping her off him and kneeling on her arms.

“Back in bed, Rosie,” they heard Frances from the bottom of the stairs.

“Gerroff, you thick bastard,” Rose coughed, but before Finn could oblige, Charlie came barreling into the room and rammed him with enough speed to knock him off balance.

“Why thank you, Charles,” Rose croaked and sat up.

Charlie grinned like a mad thing.

“What is going on here?” Frances had made it to the doorway now and was shaking her head at the chaos before her.

“She’s delirious, Frances,” Finn got up and offered Rose a hand.

“You’re not to wind her up,” Frances glared at him. “She’s meant to be recuperating.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Finn insisted. “Just asked what was up on Saturday and she went berserk. I don’t know what’s the matter with her. D’you know, Charlie?”

Charlie looked up at Finn as if he was the biggest ejit he’d ever seen.

“It’s Rosie’s birthday,” he said reverently.

“You’re joking!” Finn exclaimed in mock horror.

Rose dropped back into bed and gave him the evil eye.

“You knew,” she said.

“ ‘course, I bloody knew,” Finn picked his jacket off the floor and made for the door. “Behave now, children, I’ll see ye later.”

“We used to be children together, old fella!” Rose shouted after him, coughing a little.

“Rest,” Frances said firmly. “Come on, Charlie.”

“But-“

“Your sister needs to rest.”

“I’ll be quiet,” Charlie whispered.

“He’s orright, Frances,” Rose said generously.

“Wonders’ll never cease,” Frances muttered as she left them to it.

Rose lay back on her pillows and felt as if she had a slice of hot buttered toast growing inside her. Perhaps she should make a habit of getting ill.

#

Rose was reading _Peter and Wendy_ and was so absorbed that she didn’t notice her father until he was crouching down beside her bed. 

“One more page,” she whispered without looking up.

“One more just and I’ll turn off the light, orright? Please?”

Tommy took the book from her hands. Rose frowned at him and noticed he looked rather serious, not angry, but really very serious indeed.

“What’s wrong?” she asked a bit too loudly.

Her father put his finger to his lips and nodded over towards Charlie, sleeping already.

“Come downstairs for a bit,” he said quietly. “We’ve got to talk.”

Rose swung her legs out of bed and followed him down the stairs. She could feel small bits of gravel forming in the pit of her stomach.

“What’s wrong?” Rose asked again once they’d made it to the kitchen.

“Nothing’s wrong,” her father said calmly. “Will I make tea?”

She shrugged and Tommy put the kettle on.

“Sit down,” he said. “D’you want a biscuit?”

“No,” Rose said, staring at his back. “I want to know what’s goin’ on.”

“Fair enough.” Her father turned and leaned against the benchtop. “D’you know what’s happening on Friday?”

“Bonnie Gold’s boxing the big bastard,” Rose answered.

“That’s right.” Tommy gave her a small smile. “And afterwards Mister Gold is driving out to his people to distribute their winnings.”

“If Bonnie wins,” Rose interjected.

“He’ll win. But-” her father cleared his throat, “- more importantly, I’ve told Mister Gold to take you with him…”

Rose inhaled sharply but managed to keep her mouth shut.

“…you and your brother, both.”

Tommy was watching her closely as she wrestled with all the implications of this new plan.

“You’ll be well enough to travel,” he went on. “I’d say you’re well enough now, but there’s no time to take you until after the fight.”

Rose looked at him silently.

“It won’t be for long.” Tommy met her gaze unflinchingly. “And you’ll have your brother to look after, show him what’s what.”

Rose gave him nothing.

“I’ll be coming to get you,” her father said. “As soon as I can. It’ll only be a little while, _chavi_ , but I can’t say how little a while exactly.”

They looked at each other over the table until the whistle of the kettle broke the silence. Tommy turned the flame off without breaking eye contact. They kept staring until the kettle fell silent again. 

“Yea, orright,” Rose said nearly inaudibly.

Her father cocked his head.

“Is that all you’ve got to say?” he asked after a moment.

Rose nodded, chewing her bottom lip hard enough to almost draw blood.

“Well, bloody hell…” Tommy’s shoulders slumped a little and he stared at Rose with an expression she could neither place nor stand without squirming.

“Are you annoyed?” she asked when her skin started to crawl with discomfort.

“No,” he said. “I’m proud.”

This, Rose felt, made spending her birthday on the road with Charlie and the people of scary Mister Gold almost entirely worth it.

“So, what’s the plan?” she asked with only a little of her nerves in her voice. “Is he collecting us here after the fight’s over?”

Her father shook his head and a cigarette from the packet.

“No. You’ll come to King’s Hall with everyone and he’ll take you straight on from there once we’re done. Better that way.”

“Why’s that better?” Rose asked.

“Because the King’s Hall will have been searched, cleared and packed to the rafters with Blinders,” Tommy lit his cigarette and gave her a wink. “Come Friday afternoon there’ll be no safer place.” 

 


	11. King's Hall

By Friday morning Rose would have rather thrown herself into a barrel filled with broken glass than wait another minute before leaving the house. It wasn’t that she was looking forward to leaving; she was anxious to go because it was becoming very, very, very hard to keep pretending that she was neither scared nor upset, especially to herself.

She was sitting on the top of the stairs waiting…for anything to distract her, really. Charlie emerged from the front room, frowning.

“I can’t remember again,” he complained.

Rose rolled her eyes.

“You’ve to try harder,” she said.

“I am,” Charlie protested. “Mok…moki…”

“ _Mó-ka-do_ ,” Rose said slowly. “ _Mókado_ …?”

The concentration nearly broke her brother’s face in half.

“ _Mokado moilo*_!” he suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs.

“There you go,” Rose sighed.

“ _Mokado moilo corey**_ ,” Charlie crowed just as their father came through the front door with Johnny Dogs in tow. “ _Chikli joobly***_ -“

Johnny Dogs started laughing so hard he had to sit down on the bottom step. Tommy, on the other hand, did not look entirely thrilled.

“D’you know what you’re saying there?” he asked Charlie.

“Yes,” Charlie said uncertainly, looking from his father to his sister and back again.

Tommy gave Rose a pointed look.

“You _said_ to start teaching him,” she said.

“I didn’t say to start teaching him _this_ ,” her father growled.

“They’re not even the bad ones,” Rose defended herself. “And he’ll have to have something when they start calling him a gadj.”

“She’s got a point, y’know,” Johnny Dogs said, wiping his eyes. “How’s Rosie? All better?”

“Yes, thank you.” Rose got up and came down the stairs, digging a fistful of loose coins from her pocket. “D’you take bets yet?”

“Sure.”

“What’s this now?” Tommy said incredulous.

“Four shilling and twenty…no, thirty p on Bonnie Gold,” Rose told Johnny Dogs, ignoring her father completely.

“D’you want to put in for a round?”

“No, thank you.” Rose looked up at Johnny Dogs curiously. “Unless you know something I don’t.”

“Many, many things, _bitti pen_.” Johnny Dogs handed her a scrappy chit. “Hold onto this. Don’t give it til you’ve your money.”

“Do I look thick to you?” Rose asked, mortally offended.

“Are the two of you quite done?” Tommy snapped impatiently. “We’ve a bit to do still, ay? You-“ he pointed at Rose and Charlie “-upstairs and out of the way til it’s time to go. You’ll be goin’ in with your uncle Finn and some of the lads.”

“Save a seat up front, yea?” Rose said cheerfully.

If nothing else, she was looking forward to the fight something shocking. Her father looked at her as if she’d just grown a second head.

“What?” she asked. “I’ll be able to see fuck all from the back.”

“Mind how you speak to me,” he said. “And you’ll be able to see all you need whilst you’re waiting in the change room.”

“Ah, no…” Rose’s face fell. “Come on. Please?”

“No.”

“But…” she could see his impatience but she couldn’t help herself, “…it’s me birthday tomorrow. Please? Just the-“

“I’ve no time for your nonsense, Rose,” Tommy interrupted. “Now, take your brother upstairs and teach him something that won’t get him smacked in the mouth, orright?”

“But-“

“Orright?” he repeated sharply.

“Yea, orright, Jaysis…” she groaned. “Come on, Charles.”

They trampled up the stairs, sat on their beds and waited and waited and waited.

#

For the first ten minutes being in the maze of dark corridors that made up most of the King’s Hall’s bowels was quite exciting. But once Finn had deposited them in an empty change room – empty! not even the one where the Gold’s were getting Bonnie wrapped and ready – alongside one of the lads, who’d clearly lost drawing straws and now begrudgingly sat guard with them, it became instantly dull.

Charlie found a crate of empty beer bottles in a corner and was lining them up for an improvised game of nine-pins, but Rose was too annoyed at being parked in here to muster any enthusiasm. Even though they were deep, deep inside the gut of the hall, she could hear the crowd roaring…and it hadn’t even bloody started yet. There was no worse form of missing out than missing out this close to the action.

“When are we going?” Charlie asked for the millionth time.

“After they’re done boxing,” Rose sighed.

“Where are we going?” It wasn’t the first time he’d asked her this either, not even in the last fifteen minutes.

“I don’t know,” she groaned. “If I knew I’d fucking have told you hours ago. Somewhere far. We’ll have to see.”

“Is Frances coming?”

“No, Charles,” Rose said wearily.

“Why isn’t she?”

“We told you, she’s having a holiday. At her sister’s.”

Charlie puffed out his cheeks and looked at the ceiling for a long time.

“Are you scared?” he asked finally.

“ ‘course not.” Rose put on her most confident face. “It’s just a bit of camping. There’ll be fires. It’ll be good.”

“ _Kushti_ ,” Charlie said. “You’ve got to say kushti.”

“Yes, Charles. Kushti.”

Rose lay back on the wooden bench and listened as they rung the first round and all hell broke loose over by the ring. When the round rang out, she got up and went to the door.

“Where d’you think you’re going?” their chaperone asked.

“The bog, if it’s all the same to you,” she snapped. “D’you want to walk me there?”

“Be quick, right?” he said grumpily.

As she walked down the corridor it took all she had to resist the urge to turn right at the end and sneak into the hall proper. Instead the turned left, pushed open the door to the ladies’ lavatory and was greeted by the sight of her aunt Polly feeling up Lizzie’s tits under the watchful gaze of her auntie’s Ada and Linda.

Before Rose could process this new weirdness and make her presence known, Polly removed her hands and announced “A girl.”

This seemed to be good news.

“Call her Ruby. Ruby Shelby. She’ll be a star in Hollywood," Pol told Lizzie.

“Call her what?” Rose exclaimed without meaning to.

The women turned and for an instant there seemed no air left in the room. Through the walls they heard the bell heralding the end of the second round. Linda burst into hysterics.

“Congratulations, Rosie,” she said. “You’ll be a big sister again.”

“But- what?” Rose stared at them, noticing the half-gone bottle and a small vial of that white stuff by the mirror.

“I’ve always wanted a sister,” her auntie Ada said wistfully. “You’re lucky, Rosie.”

“Am I now?” she snapped, feeling her face heat up.

“Oh, don’t get your knickers in a knot,” Linda said, turning to the mirror to check the state of her powdered nose. “It’s not like their getting married.”

Rose glared at them, that coven of painted witches, and backed towards the door.

“Stuff the lot of youse,” she spat before she turned and stalked off.

“No, let ‘er go,” she heard her aunt Polly say. “She’ll come ‘round.”

Rose made it to the end of the corridor and around its corner before she needed to stop, lean her back against the wall and make herself remember how to take a proper breath.

The thought that her father was sending her on the road because he had a replacement on the way was trying to fight its way up to her head from the pit of her stomach. She knew it wasn’t true, but that didn’t make it feel any less horrible.

What had to be true, though, was that her father knew there was a new baby coming to squeeze away even more of his time and he’d not thought it necessary to tell her.

Rose could feel a familiar tightness in her jaw. She made herself take a deep breath and hold it until she’d counted to ten. It did absolutely nothing to make her feel better.

“Fuck.”

The word echoed around the empty corridor, bouncing off the walls, joining the constant noise of cheers and shouts from the hall. There was some high-pitched laughs as the ladies’ left the lavatory and set off back to the centre of the action.

“Fuck’em,” Rose said as calmly as she could. “Fuck it.”

She’d go back to the change room and wait. There was nothing else to be done.

Rose looked down the corridor and tried to get her bearings. She wasn’t entirely sure she’d turned the right way coming out from the loo. Or maybe she had.

“Hey.”

Rose turned and saw a man coming towards her. He’d a towel round his neck and his sleeves rolled up. It struck Rose as strange that a cornerman should be away from the ring when the fight was clearly still very much in progress.

“What are you doin’ back here, kid?” he asked when he reached her and Rose realised with a start that there wasn’t a chance in hell he was from London, or even in any way English, as he should have been if he was part of Goliath’s crew.

“Nothin’…”  

He was looking at her in a way Rose didn’t care for at all. He made to grab her arm and she took a step back.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Fuck off…”

He reached for her again. Rose ducked under his arm, planning to sprint down the corridor, but he was ready for it, the bastard. Before she knew what was happening he’d wrapped the towel around her face, blinding her and a moment later her head hit the wall with such force everything went black for a second.

She was aware of being hoisted up and carried at rapid pace, the towel and the stars dancing in front of her eyes making her dizzy and confused. Somewhere far behind them in the catacombs of the King’s Hall a shot rang out and they sped up.

There was a rush of cool air, the sound of an idling car, words shouted she didn’t understand. Rose opened her mouth to scream but found it filled with towel.

She started thrashing only to found herself thrown down somewhere hard and narrow, face down; a foot stepping onto the small of her back, another on the back of her neck. An engine roared into life and its vibrations went straight through her body. Rose realised she had to be on the floor of a car, wedged between the front and back seats.

Panicked she tried to push up, spit out the towel, kick at something…but as it were she was a ten-year-old girl, well, eleven nearly, and a grown man was holding her down and she stood no chance at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glossary of reasonably benign Romani swearing:  
> *filthy donkey  
> **filthy donkey cock  
> ***dirty, lousy...
> 
>  
> 
> And now, we brace ourselves for the showdown. Shall we?


	12. Grand Hotel

Rose’s tenth birthday had been, bar none, the best birthday she’d ever had; especially since she’d had very low expectations. She’d not seen her father for days. He’d been holed up in his office, she presumed; but, to be honest, she wasn’t sure he was in the house at all. He could have been in Africa and she wouldn’t have known any different.

So, when he woke her at the crack of dawn and told her to dress and come downstairs as quickly and quietly as she could, the surprise of it had been enough to make her day. They slipped from the house silently and made their way down to the stable in the half-light.  
  
The two horses greeting them with cloudy, huffing breaths were due to leave the next day, to go somewhere to be trained and hopefully do well on the track and make some money; they weren’t even named yet, even though they were grown and huge.  
  
Her father put reigns on them, not bothering with saddles or bridles, and Rose stepped into his hands to get up.  
  
“What’re we doing?” she asked.

“We’re running away,” Tommy said with a rare smile. “Day off, you and me.”

Rose had grown a grin so enormous, it actually hurt her face.

And then, just as he’d said, they ran away. Galloped off across the fields in no particular direction, racing each other through the clouds of early morning fog rising off the damp grass, the horses delighted at being out and Rose so happy she couldn’t help but scream.

By the time they started thinking about breakfast, an apple orchard magically appeared in the distance. They rode up to it, Tommy tossed Rose a small bag and Rose climbed from horseback to fence, then fence to tree.

“Not those, Rosie,” her father called when she made to pick the fruit above her. “Top ones are nicer, ay, closer to the sun.”

She gave him a skeptical look.

“It’s a fact,” he said. “Go on, up you go.”

So, Rose climbed higher, then a little higher and then as high as she possibly could and started filling the bag, grudgingly admitting to herself that the apples up here did look better. She’d only just started when a sharp whistle from below got her attention.

“We’ve friends coming,” her father shouted up to her.

Sure enough, there was some angry shouts approaching from somewhere amongst the trees and Rose started to scramble down the tree at top speed. She lost her grip once or twice and scraped down parts of the trunk, but it took her no time at all until she swung from a low branch straight onto the horse, bypassing the fence entirely. They were off before anyone could object to their choice of breakfast, Rose giggling like a mad thing.

They rode down to the river, let the horses have a break, sat in the slowly warming sun and ate apples.

“That looks a sore one,” Tommy said as Rose stretched her legs out in the grass, revealing a ripped stocking and a long, bloody scratch underneath.

“Nah,” she said. “Must’ve got snagged on a twig or bark or somethin’. Not sore at all.”

Her father smiled, bit into his apple and lay back; Rose did the same.

“Nice day for it,” she said through a mouthful of apple.

“Stealing apples and scradging yourself to ribbons?” Tommy asked.

“You need ribbons on your birthday,” Rose said drily. “And these-” she admired her half-eaten apple “-are as good as cake. Maybe better.”

“Is that right, now?” Her father’s hand snaked across and found her hair. “So, you’ve got your cakes and you’ve got your ribbons. What else d’you need?”

Rose thought about this for a while.

“Nothin’,” she said at last, with absolute conviction. “Nothin’ at all.”

#

Rose spent her eleventh birthday locked into a room on the ninth floor of the Grand Hotel; sitting on the bed with her back against the wall and her knees drawn to her chest, mostly, silently crying on and off.

She was crying because she’d been such easy bait. For some reason, Rose had always assumed that she’d be the type of girl to put up an impressive fight – she’d held her own in a fair few scraps on the street, after all – but when it had mattered she’d let herself be plucked like a defenseless little flower.

She was crying because she hadn’t tried to run when the car stopped in Colmore Row and the man in the car let her up. Instead, she’d done everything he’d told her to do. She’d let him pick her up, rested her head on his shoulder and pretended to be asleep as he carried her into the lobby, into the elevator and into the room.

She was crying because all it had taken to make her obey had been his threat that he would break one finger for each instruction she failed to carry out. He’d held her right hand in both of his as he told her this, bending her little finger back at a horrible angle, leaving no doubt that he meant business.

She was crying because she’d left the change room and because she was having a new sister and because it was her birthday and she was all alone and terrified.

But, most of all, she was crying because she’d given the rat catchers had the best bait of all…and left her father at their mercy.

She didn’t remember falling asleep, but at some point she looked up from her knees and a tray had appeared on the table. It had a silver dome and a teapot on it and Rose stared at it for what felt like years, trying to remember the taste of the stolen apples.

#

The window was locked. Even if it hadn’t been, the room was too high up to contemplate climbing out, but Rose had considered dropping a note down to the street. She had neither a pencil nor paper nor any idea what to write if she did.

There was a second door, one that wasn’t locked, but on the other side was just a windowless bathroom. Rose drank water from the tap and stared at herself in the mirror until she no longer recognised herself.

She fell asleep and had a dream of damp, dark cloths around her, listening to thuds and yelps from the other side, feeling hands trying to claw their way into her prison.

#

The day after her birthday Rose was awake when the door opened. A man in a sharp suit came in, carrying a new tray, with a new dome and a new pot of tea.  
He put it down on the table, gave her a nod and left.

Rose was starving. She hadn’t eaten at all the day before and nothing since lunch the day before that. Still, she didn’t get up from the bed until she’d heard the key turn in the lock.

Under the dome was a fry up that would have given her cause to dance for joy under normal circumstances. As it were, it tasted of nothing and sat in her guts with a heavy feeling of betrayal. Eating the rat catchers’ food was an act of weakness, of treason, of being nothing but a stupid little girl.

$

The silence was the thing that got to her.  
Once Rose had been in the room for three nights and three days she was starting to feel what she assumed was her mind slipping. She’d never spent more than a few hours in this type of quiet. Even when she’d felt at her loneliest in the big house, there’d never been a single day when no one at all had spoken to her. It had seemed like that to her, but only because the one person she wanted to speak to her had been largely absent. Everyone else didn’t matter, she could have done without them. She knew better now…but it seemed a pointless knowledge to have gained.

#

She tried to make up stories, but her mind kept sliding back into the room. She couldn’t make it three sentences without slamming back into the real world.

#

“What’s your name?”

The man in the sharp suit was bringing dinner. Rose knelt up on the bed and tried to catch his eye. He did his best to avoid it, put the tray on the table and left.

“Just…” Rose jumped off the bed, her voice high with rising panic “…please? I’m Rose. Please, just tell me your-“

The door closed and something inside her started to fizz like a swarm of bees. She ran at the door and started pounding it with both fists, kicking it with her feet, banging her head against it.

“Please!” she yelled. “Please!”

Rose didn’t know quite what she was begging for. To be let out, to be spoken to, to be taken home, to wake up and find she’d been home all along, to be told that they weren’t just going to keep her in here in silence forever until she went mad.

The door was pushed open so suddenly and violently, it sent her sprawling onto the thick, soft carpet. Rose was grabbed by the front of her dress, dragged across the room and thrown into a plush armchair.

“Quit screaming,” the man in the sharp suit hissed very close to her ear.

“I-“

“Shut your mouth.” She stared at him, wild-eyed. “Don’t make no racket and you’ll be alright.”

“Please-“

“I’m giving you advice, little girl,” he said quietly. “Take it. No more noise, okay?”

Rose nodded mutely.

“Smart kid,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He walked out, the lock clicked and Rose slid from the chair onto the carpet and lay staring at the ceiling until it was dark and surprised herself by going to sleep.

#

_Rose and her father were checking on the fire in the shipyard. It was raining and freezing, but Rose didn’t feel cold at all. It was late and Tommy was a little drunk maybe and he was telling her about how, during the war, they’d once tunneled up by mistake into the basement of a house; and how the basement had been filled with children’s toys._   
_“  
_ _Why?”_

_“We never worked it out.”_

_“Did the war make you crazy?”_

_“Do I seem crazy to you, Rosie?”_

_“No.”_

_“There you go.” He bent forward and lit a cigarette on the open fire._

_“_ _How’d you not go crazy?”_

_Her father thought about this for about half-a-cigarette’s time._   
_“_

_There’s a trick to it,” he said. “D’you want to know?”_

_Rose nodded._

_“You take a very small piece of yourself and you hide it away somewhere deep inside, put a lid on it and don’t take it back out until you’re sure it’s all over.”_

_Rose frowned._

_“A piece like a finger?”_

_“No, Rosie, a piece of what’s inside you.”_

_“What’d you put away?”_

_Her father looked into the fire and the flames were dancing in his eyes._

_“I don’t remember,” he said._

_“But is it still in there?”_

_“Hopefully.”_

#

When the man in the sharp suit brought her breakfast the next day, Rose was sitting at the table rather than on the bed.

“Sleep well?” he asked in a low voice.

“Not really,” she whispered.

“I slept like shit,” he said and was gone.

Rose lay her head on the table next to the plate of toast and repeated his words over and over and over until they became a soft mush inside her.

#

Rose sat in the soft armchair, watching the sunlight travel across the wall. Judging from the light it was late afternoon when someone knocked on the door. Rose got out of the chair, uncertain what to do. It knocked again.

“Come in…” she called, frowning when the door opened without the customary unlocking sounds.

“Good afternoon, Miss Shelby.”

The man from the wedding picture, the one from the third floor of the red block, closed the door, crossed the room and stopped right in front of her, waiting.

“Good afternoon,” Rose whispered.

He smiled. She didn’t want to stare, but she couldn’t help it. He didn’t look all that dangerous now, not more so than the men she’d known for most of her life; he looked sad, if she was honest. He motioned for her to sit back down and took the armchair opposite.

“We have a lot to talk about,” he said. “I would have come sooner, but times are busy. You know how it is.”

He wouldn’t go on, so Rose made herself nod, feeling as if her head was impaled on a spike.

“Do you know who I am, Miss Shelby?”

Rose shook her head slowly.

“My name is Luca Changretta,” he said, watching her for a reaction, or perhaps waiting for her to make some sort of reply, Rose wasn’t sure.

“How d’you do, Mister Changretta,” she said, barely audibly, after a while.

“I’m okay,” he said. “No, actually, I’ve been better. But so have you, huh?”

Rose shrugged.

“How old are you, Miss Shelby?”

“Te-…eleven.”

He looked even more sad at this.

“It’s unlucky you got mixed up in this ugly adult business,” he said. “But there’s nothing can be done about it now. Do you know what business I’m talking about?”

“No.”

“I have a score to settle with your father,” said Mister Changretta. “A very big score.”

Rose looked at him, waiting.

“Your father and your uncles,” Mister Changretta went on, “they murdered my father. He was an old man, no threat to no one. He didn’t have a lotta time left as it was. But killed him anyways. Tied him to a chair and shot him at close range.”

Rose wanted to shout at him that she didn’t believe him, but she did.

“I loved my father.”

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“That’s sweet, kid. Real sweet.” Mister Changretta reached over and gently patted her knee. “Don’t get me wrong, please, I know my father did a lotta bad things in his life, upset a lotta people. But when it came to his family, there wasn’t a better man. He built us an empire outta nothing, worked every day of his life. But he didn’t get any time to look back on it as an old man and enjoy it. Breaks my heart.”

“Is that why you killed my uncle John?” Rose asked.

“Exactly.” Mister Changretta nodded solemnly. “The one holed up in that dump in the country…and the other one. The crazy one.”

Rose’s face started slipping all over the place.

“You hadn’t heard,” Mister Changretta sighed. “I’m real sorry. I thought one of the guys might have mentioned it. My condolences, Miss Shelby.”

“D’you mean my uncle Arthur?” she croaked, just to be sure, because maybe he meant someone else…

“That crazed animal.” Mister Changretta’s mouth hardened. “A mercy killing, if you really think about it.”

Tears were sliding slowly and quietly down Rose’s cheeks.

“They’re doing that thing you gypsies do, right about now.” Mister Changretta fished a toothpick from his pocket and delicately placed it in the corner of his mouth. “Burning him in a wagon on a bed of flowers. My mother is going.”

Rose looked up at him, confused.

“Isn’t that dangerous for her?” she asked.

“I like you,” he said with a wistful smiled. “You’re a good kid. Just heard your uncle’s bought the farm and here you are, concerned for my mother’s safety.”

The toothpick was flicking around between his teeth hypnotically.

“My mother’s going to be just fine. You know why, Miss Shelby?”

“Yea,” Rose said with an uneasy certainty. “Because I’m here with you.”

“Exactly.” He tapped the tip of her nose with his finger. “Because you are here, with me.”

“What d’you want with me, Mister Changretta?” Rose looked at him, meeting his eye for as long as she dared. Perhaps as long as his mother was with her father, she herself was safe as well.

“That depends,” he said. “You see, the plan was to exchange your father’s life for yours. You follow?”

Rose couldn’t nod. She was frozen.

“It means, basically, we were going to get him to meet us somewhere nice and quiet, shoot him in the head and then let you go.”

There was something wrong with the walls. They were shivering like wet sheets on the washing line. The light had gotten very bright.

“Way I figured it, that was fair. Your father killed my father, so I would kill him.”

Rose couldn’t get any air.

“But now I’ve met you,” Mister Changretta went on. “We’ve talked. And I like you. Gets me thinking. I was already a grown man when I lost my father and it tore me up so bad, I didn’t think I’d make it. Feels wrong to put you through the same when you’re only a little kid.”

She made herself listen. He was telling her something important and she had to understand it.

“So now I’m thinking there’s gotta be a way outta this mess that spares you that pain,” he said slowly. “And maybe, I’m thinking, it’s time for me to be the bigger man. Give my enemy’s child the choice he denied me.”

“What choice?” Rose heard herself ask.

“Someone’s gotta die, Miss Shelby, that’s just the way these things are. But-“ Mister Changretta took the toothpick from his lips and rolled it between two fingers, “- it doesn’t have to be your father.”

“Then who dies?”

For a long while Mister Changretta looked at her, studying her as if he wanted to remember her forever, or paint her.

“You do,” he said at last. “The plan stays the same, essentially. We meet up somewhere nice and quiet, but in the end your father walks away and gets to be an old man one day.”

Rose became perfectly still.

“D’you promise?” she asked after several lifetimes of silence.

Mister Changretta held up three fingers.

“Scout’s honour, kid.”


	13. Waiting

Things became very strange.

The man in the sharp suit, who suddenly introduced himself as Mimo as though it was the most normal thing in the world, took the door to Rose’s room off its hinges once Mister Changretta had gone. There was a large sitting room on the other side, part of a fancy suite, its lounges and chair filled with more men in more sharp suits.

“If you need something just ask, okay, kid?” Mimo said casually. “There’s always a coupla guys hanging out here, day or night.”

There was a constant whooshing sound in Rose’s ears, like the waves of the ocean breaking against the inside of her skull; but even through this wall of noise she understood that what Mimo was actually telling her was that there were guards and no means of escape.

As she realised this, another much weirder thing became clear; he’d taken her door away so they could make sure she didn’t what the grown-ups in her life referred to as “something daft” in hushed voices.   
Mister Sheedy from number 15 had been daft enough to put a belt round his neck until he couldn’t breathe anymore.   
Alice’s neighbour had been so daft she’d cut herself with a knife in the bath and bled out.   
Rose had heard of daft people hopping off bridges and buildings and, in one particularly daft case, in front of a moving train. 

Now Mister Changretta’s lads…no, guys…had to keep an eye on Rose to make sure she didn’t die before she was supposed to.

Rose was sitting on the floor in front of the hole that had been her door and watched the guys in the other room. They weren’t doing very much. Just sitting and talking in low voices. After a while, Rose got up and walked into the sitting room to see what would happen. They glanced up at her and went back to talking. Mimo gave her a small nod.

Rose crossed the room, climbed onto the window sill and watched the people on the street below. Walking around. Going about their business. It was nice here, in the middle of the city. There was so much to see, so much to do. It was sad that she wouldn’t be here for much longer.

Rose leaned her head on the window and cried for a while, without making noise though. She didn’t want to die. Not even a little.

She could tell Mister Changretta not to shoot her; the choice was her’s, he’d said so and she believed him. But she wanted to live without her father even less. It had been orright during the war, because she’d not really remembered him and, of course, she’d never doubted that he was coming back.   
Now that she did know him, she didn’t want to be left alone again.

Especially not if she’d know every day and every minute and all the time that he was only gone because she was not.

And there was Charlie, of course, who’d be all alone with no parents at all. And her new sister, who’d have Lizzie but would never even know their father. It wasn’t fair.

And, most importantly, it wasn’t her father’s fault that Rose had been stupid enough to get caught. He’d have had a chance to stay alive, a good one maybe even, if she’d just stayed in the stupid change room. If she’d just run faster.

She hoped it wouldn’t hurt very much. Or at least not for long.

Rose turned and looked over at the guys. Then, very slowly, she got up off the window sill, walked over to them and sat down next to Mimo on the sofa.

“Hey,” he said.

“Is this orright?” she asked tearfully.

“Yea, kid, that’s okay.” He moved over a little to make more room for her. “You hungry or anything?”

“No, thank you.”

It was good to sit next to someone, even someone she didn’t really know, even someone who was the enemy. Rose knew she should have gone back into her room until it was time to go and be killed, but she didn’t want to be alone for the rest of her life. She drew her legs up and listened to the guys’ rolling and rambling Italian until she drifted off to sleep.

#

When she woke up, her whole head was filled up with a song she didn’t think she knew. It came out of her now, in hums and sighs. Mimo, who was smoking by the window, turned and looked at her strangely.

“Where’d you hear that, kid?” he asked.

Rose shrugged and kept humming. Mimo put out his cigarette, came over and crouched by the sofa.

“ _Ma come balli bene bimba, bella bimba, bella bimba…”_ he sang softly.

Rose cocked her head at him.

“How d’you know that one?” she asked.

“Everyone knows it,” he said simply. “Used to be my daughter’s favourite. Better question is, how do _you_ know?”

“I dunno…” but even as she said it, Rose knew this wasn’t strictly true.

There’d been a sad woman singing it to her in the kitchen of the house with the blue door, long, long, long ago, before she’d gone to live with her aunt Polly and Ada and Finn. She’d sung that song and fed her biscuits with raisins in them.

“Me nan,” she said.

“What?” Mimo asked.

“My grandmother,” Rose said. “She’d sing it, I think.”

“She Italian?” Mimo raised an eyebrow.

“Yea.” Rose hadn’t thought about this in so long it surprised her as well. “She must’ve been.”

Mimo sighed and got up onto the sofa next to her. Rose suddenly felt so exhausted she couldn’t hold her head up anymore. She let it drop against Mimo’s shoulder. It made her feel so guilty, it made her chest ache, but she couldn’t help it.

“Does it hurt to get shot?” she whispered.

“Not if it kills you,” Mimo said after a moment. “One second you’re breathin’, the next you’re not. No pain at all, kid.”

“How d’you know?” Rose closed her eyes but the tears came anyway.

“Because they don’t scream when you shoot’em dead,” Mimo said. “They don’t have time, not if you do it right.”

“Is Mister Changretta good at shootin’?” Rose asked.

“Uhm…” Mimo cleared his throat once, twice. “Yea, he’s pretty good.”

They sat like that for a long time. Rose didn’t remember being carried to bed.

#

When she woke up there was a woman waiting to measure her for a dress.

“You’re a lucky duck, aren’t you?” she asked cheerfully while she took down the length of Rose’s arms and the breadth of her back.

Rose looked over at Mimo leaning in the doorless doorframe, who gave her a minute nod.

“Yes,” Rose said with a voice she didn’t recognise. “Very lucky.”

“What colour d’you like?” the woman asked.

“White.” Rose looked up at Mister Changretta strolling into the room.

“Just plain white?”

“Yea. White for the belle of the ball.” He looked pained for a moment. “When’s it gonna be done?”

“I’ll bring it tomorrow, if you’re in a rush,” the woman said. “I could maybe even do tonight, but that’ll be extra.”

“Tomorrow’s fine,” Mister Changretta said. “Before ten am.”

He left them to it then and Rose’s eyes drifted to the clock on the sideboard of the sitting room, just visible through the doorway.

It was eleven in the morning. She’d not even a full day to go.

#

Mimo had gone in search of “an orange that doesn’t taste fucking depressed”, so he’d said, and Rose was back on the windowsill, waiting for him to come back. It was two in the afternoon and he’d been gone for over an hour. Two other guys were playing cards at the table, but she didn’t know their names and figured there was no point in learning them now.

They didn’t seem interested in her, so long as she stayed away from the door. She’d walked near it earlier, when Mimo was leaving, drifting in his wake, and those two’d been up and in her face right away. Mimo had snapped something in Italian at them and they’d gone away. He was orright, Mimo. He’d keep her safe until it was time to go.

#

When Charlie’d been very little, only just walking, Rose had kicked him down the front stairs of the big house. He bit his lip on the way down and there was blood everywhere, fairly pissing out of his mouth.

It’d been a stupid thing to do; especially since Grace had been right there next to them. Right fucking there.

Rose didn’t even remember what she’d been angry about, but she’d been livid.

Charlie’d turned out to be fine, mostly, a bruise maybe, a bit of a cut perhaps.

“You wait til your father comes home,” Grace had hissed at Rose, as she carried the screaming Charlie inside to clean him up.

The waiting, the imagining of what was going to happen, the certainty that it was going to happen and it was going to be terrible, followed by more waiting…it had been hideous. It had been so unnerving and exhausting that by the time her father finally came home, Rose was surprisingly relieved to get her hiding, just so that she could stop waiting for it.

If she was lucky, maybe it was the same way with dying. Maybe the actual dying wouldn’t be as bad as waiting to die. It’d certainly be over more quickly. Rose watched the clock.

#

“What’s your favourite food?” Mimo asked when it was nearly six in the evening.

“Bacon,” Rose answered.

They’d been silently playing cards for the better part of an hour. The other guys had gone. There had been many minutes in the last hour when Rose had managed to think only of her hand.

“Fucking bacon?”

“Yea,” she said, putting her cards down.

“Why?”

“Because it’s fucking delicious.” Rose found herself giggling uncontrollably.

The giggles had turned into full-blown hysterics by the time Mimo had finished ordering a plate of bacon to be brought up.

“You going okay over here?” he asked, frowning at her.

“I dunno…”

Rose had no power over anything anymore. Something was happening to her laughter, something heavy and scratchy, it was taking her breath away. From one instant to the next, she was choking, struggling for air.

“Oh, shit.” Mimo crouched down beside her. “Hey…hey! Put your head between your knees…”

He put his hand on the back of Rose’s neck and bent her forward.

“Breathe in through your nose,” she could just hear him over the pandemonium of her gasping, “and out through your mouth. In…out…in…out…”

At first it didn’t seem to work at all, but after a little while, Rose found she was breathing again. She let herself roll sideways onto the sofa. Mimo dropped onto the chair opposite.

“Porca Madonna, kid,” he said. “Don’t do that type of shit, okay?”

There was a knock on the door and a waiter brought the biggest pile of bacon Rose had ever seen in her life. She took one look at it and threw up all over the sofa.

#

Rose’s hair was damp from the bath and she was wearing a shirt long enough to be a dress. Mimo had appropriated it from one of the guys after he’d left her to clean herself up.

“Drink this.” Mimo held out a glass of something clear that smelled off disinfectant.

“What is it?”

“It’ll help you sleep.” He made her take it in her hand. “Hold your nose, kid. Tastes like shit.”

Rose did as he said and coughed violently for a minute or so afterwards.

“You gonna be sick again?” he asked.

She shook her head and curled herself into the furthest corner of the sofa. Already her eyelids were starting to feel heavy and there was a big warm sun somewhere deep down inside her.

“Do you believe in heaven, Rosa?” Mimo asked.

“I dunno…” she said slowly. “Maybe.”

“I do.” Mimo was sounding far away. “And I tell you this, kid, it sounds a helluva lot better than this shit.”

“Mm….”

Rose couldn’t keep her eyes open. If there was a heaven and people went there, she’d be in excellent company in…she forced her eyes open to check the clock…in about fourteen hours. Her mother might be there and her uncles and Michael Sutcliffe from down the road who got kicked in the head by a horse, he’d been fun to hang around with…excellent at football….

#

Rose woke with a start to a room flooded with sunlight and a blindingly white dress draped over the back of the sofa. She sat up and her eyes found the clock. 9.30 am.   



	14. Everybody Loves My Baby

Mister Changretta, it turned out, was impossibly particular. Perhaps he was nervous, perhaps he was impatient; but no matter which is was, it made him very bad company.

The dress fit Rose perfectly. Someone had gone to the trouble of polishing her boots. There were white stockings still in the packet even.

Rose looked like she was about to make her first communion, something her father had not bothered with, but Mister Changretta was not impressed.

“She looks like a fucking raccoon died on her head,” he snapped as soon as he took a look at her. “Someone get me a fucking brush…what the fuck’s this supposed to be?” One of the guys had produced a comb from his breast pocket. “You see this kid? She’s got enough hair to weave a fucking carpet with. What’s this shit gonna do? _Bisognio una minchia spazzola!”_

From somewhere, someone finally brought a hairbrush. Mister Changretta pulled Rose between his knees, turned her around and started brushing her hair. She could feel clumps of it coming out, but she didn’t feel any pain.

It was like she was watching from somewhere by the window.

“Find me a woman,” Mister Changretta snapped at the guys.

“What for?” one of them asked.

“To plait this mess.”

“I can do that,” Mimo said quietly.

“What are you, some kind of _finocchio_?” asked another guy.

“No, asshole, I got daughters.”

Mimo took Rose’s arm and led her over to the sofa, where he proceeded to braid her hair into a surprisingly fancy arrangement that made Rose think of show ponies.

“Alright, let’s go.” Mister Changretta was clicking his fingers and working his toothpick furiously.

He took Rose’s hand in his. Rose looked towards the end of her arm and could see her hand in his, admired his very nice fingernails, much nicer than her own, but again she couldn’t really feel it. Her feet were the same, she was walking and when she looked down she could see her shiny boots stepping, but she couldn’t feel the floor.

“You look beautiful, Miss Shelby,” said Mister Changretta.

“Thank you…”

They walked out of the suite, down the corridor and into the waiting elevator. Mimo was with them and a bunch of guys, all of them dressed to the nines, as if they were all going to church together.

They crossed the lobby. Mister Changretta kept hold of her hand. People were looking over at them, smiling at them. They probably took them for father and daughter, Rose figured, off to somewhere special. She caught one lady’s eye and smiled back at her.

The ocean waves inside her ears grew louder.

They walked down the grand stairs out the front. Two cars were waiting. Rose made to climb in but Mister Changretta’s hand on her shoulder stopped her.

“Let me,” he said and lifted her up and into the back as if she weighed nothing at all. “You don’t wanna get that dress dirty so close to the finish line.”

Rose sat between Mister Changretta and one of the guys, one who wasn’t Mimo, and watched the city drift by outside. The sun was out.

She thought about asking where they were going, but it didn’t seem to really matter.

She leaned forward to get a better view past the guy next to her. There was a gang of children sprinting along the street, weaving in between the people walking around. James would be impressed when he heard she’d been shot and killed, maybe he’d feel a little bad, too. Rose hoped he wouldn’t.

“Second thoughts, Miss Shelby?” She didn’t turn to look at him.

“No,” she said dreamily.

“You got a lotta stuff, kid,” Mister Changretta said. “Listen up. When we go in, you stick with me. If you don’t, I’ll have to assume you’ve changed your mind.”

“I won’t.”

Rose watched two women strolling arm in arm, sharing a cigarette between them. She might have done that with Alice or Helen one day.

It didn’t matter.

The car stopped and Rose allowed herself to be lifted from the car.

“Here we go.”

Mister Changretta took her hand again and Rose floated alongside him towards…she looked up and realised they were walking into her uncle Charlie’s shipyard.

The sight of it was so familiar it brought all of Rose back into herself instantly.

Her heart exploded.

She dug her heels into the uneven pavement, her knees buckling.

“What the fuck are you doin’, kid?”

He was going to shoot her dead. He was going to take her in there, into the shipyard and shoot her dead.

“I- I-I-“

Her teeth were chattering.

She was trembling so hard, Mister Changretta had a hard time keeping hold of her. He let go of her hand and glared at her.

“You’ve got thirty seconds to make your mind up, Miss Shelby,” he said coldly.

She couldn’t do it. Rose couldn’t do it.

“Rosa…” Mimo was behind her now, his hand on her back, gripping a fistful of dress, holding her upright and moving her forward at the same time. “She’s coming, boss, we’re coming.”

Rose twisted her neck, staring up at him.

“You’re alright, kid,” he said quietly. “Just keep walking.”

Rose was half-pushed, half-dragged forward.

“You don’t want your father to see you like this,” Mimo murmured behind her. “The more you keep your shit together, the less he’s gonna hurt.”

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“Then your old man gets it,” Mimo said simply. “Is that what you want?”

“No…no…but….”

“You’re nearly there, Rosa.”

They were nearly there, he was right. They were through the gates and on their way to the gin shed. Rose was straining for breath so hard her nostrils flared like a filly’s.

“You know that song, Everybody Loves my Baby?” Mimo asked.

Rose nodded, her teeth still hammering like mad.

“You play that in your head, okay?” Mimo pushed her forward into the shed. “You won’t make it through the whole thing before it’s all over.”

“Promise?” Rose managed hoarsely.

“I fucking guarantee. Okay? Just don’t think about nothing else.”

Mister Changretta had stopped. He looked at Rose and gave a tiny shake of the head.

“So?” he asked. “What’s it gonna be?”

Rose found she could move on her own accord, albeit unsteadily. She walked the three steps needed to take her to his side and took his hand.

“Like we said,” she whispered. “We’ll do it like we said.”

#

Her father was there and her uncle Finn and her aunt Polly. All of them standing straight and proud, waiting for them.

 _Come on girls and cuddle near…_ Mister Changretta stopped walking, so Rose did, too. She tried to made up her mind where to look and settled on the middle button of her father’s jacket. It was a compromise. She could look at him, without looking at him.

 _Something I want you to hear…_ Some of the guys went over and patted what was left of Rose’s family down. One of them ripped her aunt’s blouse open, but neither Tommy nor Finn did anything about it.

 _About someone that I hold dear, got to let it out…_ It was sad that she wouldn’t get to apologise. Hopefully, they’d know she hadn’t meant to ruin everything.

 _It’s my daddy, can’t you guess…_ Rose could see they were talking, but between the ocean and the music inside her, she couldn’t hear a thing. It didn’t matter. She didn’t need to know.

 _Wild about him, I confess…_ She wanted so badly to look at her father’s face. It wasn’t a good idea, she wouldn’t be able to keep it together if she did.

 _Does he love me, oh my yes…_ Mister Changretta was over there now, near her family, spreading papers out on a table.

 _Yeah, everybody loves my baby But my baby don't love nobody but me, nobody but me…_ Would he shoot her in the head or the heart? Probably the heart. It would look wild on her white dress…dramatic. Mister Changretta had a flair for the dramatic.

 _Oh, everybody wants my baby But my baby don't want nobody but me; that's plain to see…_ He flipped the table so suddenly that Rose jumped back a tiny bit and bumped into Mimo behind her. He very gently pushed her back into position.

 _He’s completely sweetheart…_ Mister Changretta’s back was heaving. Even though she couldn’t see his face, Rose knew he was contorted with fury.

 _Honest, I ain't talking Greek..._ Her father knelt down. It brought his face right into Rose’s line of vision and she was too slow to look away. For the briefest instance their eyes met. Tommy’s jaw tightened and the ocean inside Rose turned into a tornado.

 _No one can come between us…_ Her father looked up at Mister Changretta, talking, signing things and talking as if they were both seated at the desk in the office.

 _I’m his Sheba, he’s my Sheik…_ Once, when they were little, her uncle Finn had fired a gun by accident, right next to Rose’s head and she’d not been able to hear properly for ages. There’d been a long, high-pitched tone. It had just gone on and on and on. It was back now. Really loud, much louder than it had been then.

 _Yes, everybody loves my baby But my baby love nobody but me…_ The room seemed to be tilting. Mister Changretta wheeled around and stared. At the guys. At Rose. He drew his gun and Rose, unwilling to wait even another second, took a step towards him.

 _Nobody but me…_ Rose’s legs gave way. Like someone had cut the string on a marionette. She didn’t feel any pain. She’d not heard a gunshot, but that didn’t mean anything.

Rose lay on the floor and watched her father beat Mister Changretta. There was a lot of blood. His hair was everywhere.

The guys didn’t interfere.

That was good.

Rose was a little impressed. Even though he was really, really copping it, Mister Changretta seemed determined to stay true to his word.

Otherwise someone would have shot her father already.

Rose wondered whether she would be leaving her body soon. Or whether her soul would just stay in it until they burned her in a vardo.

Or whether perhaps she wasn’t dead yet. Not quite.

She wanted to look and see where she was bleeding…if there was a lot of blood yet…but she couldn’t move.

But then, just then, her uncle Arthur was in the room. Storming in like an avenging angel. He pointed at Mister Changretta and Mister Changretta dropped dead.

Spectacular.

It would be orright now that her uncle Arthur was here. He’d show her what was what in the afterlife. Maybe they’d go haunting together.

Rose lay patiently, waiting for him to come and take her with him to wherever the dead stayed when they weren’t messing with the living.

Her father was above her now. There was some blood on him, but it wasn’t his. He was on the floor with her, lifting her in one arm, trying to sit her up, but she was too floppy.

He had his free hand on her cheek, in her hair, back on her cheek; his face was close to hers and she could see he was saying her name, or maybe even shouting it, but she couldn’t hear.

He looked terrible. Sad and scared and terrible.

He was shaking her now, slapping her cheek.

Soon he’d stop and he’d put his hand over her eyes and close her lids for her. That would be nice, too. She’d have a bit of rest then.

Her uncle Arthur was there as well now and Finn and Polly…with massive effort Rose found her uncle Arthur’s eyes and gave him what she hoped would count for a smile.

“Where d’we go now?”

It took her a couple of attempts to get it out.

Before Arthur could answer, a hand turned her face so Arthur was gone and there was only her father.

“Where d’you want to go, my little love?”

She could just hear him over all the white noise inside her.

“Rosie. Rose. Where d’you want to go, ay?”

She frowned up at him.

“Did you hear me?” she asked croakily.

“’course…”

He was so close, their noses were nearly touching.

“But…did you get killed, too?”

“What?”

He looked so worried. Like he’d no idea what was happening.

“It’s orright…” she whispered. “We can be dead together.”

“Rosie…”

“You and me…” Rose tried another smile “…and uncle Arthur…and…”

Tommy hoisted her higher, sitting her up with her back against his chest.

“No one’s dead, Rosie.” His voice was low and urgent and right by her ear. “Not you. Not me. Not your uncle Arthur.”

“But-“ Rose’s breath hitched and she suddenly felt every tiny piece of her body alive with coursing blood. “But…I was ready.”

She couldn’t see her father’s face like this, with her back to him, but she thought she could feel his mouth and nose on top of her head, burying into her hair. There was an odd noise, sort of like the sound people made when they snorted the white stuff.

“Come on,” Tommy finally said with a rough sort of voice. “Let’s go outside a bit, ay?”

As he carried her outside, Rose caught sight of Mister Changretta, face up on the ground in a puddle of blood and gin. All the other guys seemed to have disappeared.

She closed her eyes and buried her face against her father’s neck.

“I was ready,” she whispered. “I was…I promise. I was ready.”


	15. Bits and Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose and Tommy are losing it.

Rose couldn’t stay awake.

It was the strangest thing.

She’d never cared for sleeping, not very much, not unless she was ill. Her aunt Polly used to tell her that when Rose first came to live in Watery Lane, she sewed bells onto the hem of her nightdress so she could hear her wandering the house in the middle of the night and retrieve her. There was no threat powerful enough to keep her in bed at night.

Now though…

Rose would drop off without any warning. She’d sit down on a chair and wake with a crooked neck, hours and hours later. Waking up in the morning was like extracting herself from a trough of treacle. Sometimes she couldn’t remember walking into a room or why she’d wanted to be in it…if she’d wanted to be in it.

They’d gone back to the big house and Rose wasn’t sure if this was making things better or worse. The place was so vast she’d wander off and fall asleep and no one would know where she was for ages.

Well, Frances wouldn’t know where she was for ages…and Charlie.

No one else was looking.

#

It had all gone wrong.

Her father had carried her from the gin shed and sat her down on a crate somewhere outside and started running his hands all over her face and shoulders and arms. There were bruises on his knuckles and blood. There was blood on the cuffs of his jacket, too.

“Rosie. Rose.”

She looked up. He’s asked something, more than once most likely. She’d missed it.

“Yea?”

“Are you hurt?”

Rose didn’t know how to explain just how hurt she was. It wasn’t what her was asking after anyway. Tommy wanted to know if she’d been beaten. If they’d kicked her and burned her with their cigarettes. If she needed bandaging. She slowly shook her head.

“You sure you’re orright?” He had her face in both of his hands now, searching her eyes. “They didn’t touch you?”

“No,” she said and felt something harden deep within.

He’d wrapped his arms around her then and held her and held her; but then Polly had come over and told him he was wanted inside. She’d sat down next to Rosie, pulled her close, held her hands and looked at her. For ages.

“What happened?” she finally asked in such a way that left no doubt that she knew something enormous had occurred.

There was no way to tell her. Rose didn’t know for certain what had happened. So, for lack of better ideas, she shrugged.

“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing happened. I’m orright.”

To Rose’s tremendous surprise, her aunt Polly had teared up at this, leaned over and kissed her cheek.

“When you’re ready, you come and see me. Orright?” Polly squeezed Rose’s hand. “When you’ve had a little time.”

Just as she said it, Tommy had come back.

“She’s orright, Pol.” He’d looked at Rosie with an unfamiliar flash of fear. “Aren’t you, Rosie?”

“Yea,” she’d said quietly. “Right as rain.”

“Good girl, Rosie,” her father had never sounded so relieved in his life. “Good girl.”

#

They’d gone back to the big house and had a party. The day after or a week after, Rose didn’t know.

Everyone had been there. Drinking, toasting to the death of enemies. Rose had sat by the fire with Karl and Charlie, piles and piles of sweets on a platter between them.

“What’re you doing?” Karl asked.

Rose didn’t know if he was talking to her.

“Stop it.” There’d been fear in his voice, panic almost. “Stop it. Mum! Stop it, Rosie. Uncle Tommy-“

Rose noticed a new smell in the room. Smokey and a bit like bacon.

Suddenly her father’s hand was on her arm, pulling on it, shouting something over his shoulder. Her aunt Ada had come running with one of the silver buckets they used for the champagne and they’d plunged Rose’s arm into it.

She’d pulled it back out and looked at it curiously as soon as her father let go off her. Her sleeve was singed and there were angry blisters all over her wrist and her palm.

“What’s that?”

The way they’d looked at her. She still didn’t know whether they’d been disgusted or terrified or both. Charlie’d been crying; Karl, too, nearly.

She’d gone upstairs, vaguely aware of her father watching her walk out of the room, certain he wouldn’t follow.

#

He’d been off to somewhere, her father, but then he was back.

“You go in and see him,” Frances said gently.

Charlie walked cautiously into their father’s bedroom, Rose floated in behind him. Her hand was still bandaged and throbbing and when she stuck a finger between the gauze and her skin it came back slick with something like blood…but not blood. It worried her.

Tommy was on the bed, shirtless and with a bandage also.

“Did you hurt yourself?” Charlie asked timidly, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Just a bit of a scradge. It’ll be right in no time.”

Rose stood at the foot of the bed, looking. Her father was pale. There was a cigarette dying in the ashtray on the bedside table, next to a bottle and a glass. She angled her head a little and read the label.

“What’s _eradication_?” she asked.

Tommy looked up at her, his eyes glassy enough for her to see herself in them. Two tiny Rose’s leaning against the bed, staring.

“It means to make something go away completely,” he said.

“Does it work?” she asked. "Does it eradicate sadness?"

“Are you asking ‘cause you’re sad, Rosie?” Her father sounded almost hopeful.

“No,” she said, drifting back to the door. “I’m orright.”

Part of her was already upstairs and in bed, or on the rug at the top of the stair if she got too tired. Her father was fine. The doctor had been with bandages. Charlie was there to keep him company.

#

There was too much blood inside her.

Rose woke feeling as though her body was made of lead. It was clear to her in a flash.

The problem was that there was too much blood, weighing her down.

It was a tremendous effort to roll onto her side and slide the bedside drawer open. The straight razor she’d nicked from her father back when she’d thought she could put up a fight, back when she thought the things she did mattered, was in amongst all kinds of debris. Wrappers and coins and gloves and things…toys, she supposed. Spinning tops. Marbles.

She lay back, opened the blade and ran it over the top of her bare arm. Once. Twice. Three times…it didn’t hurt very much, nearly not at all.

Rose watched thin sheets of blood run down onto the sheet. The weight was lifting.

When she woke again, the room was flooded with sunlight and her arm was stuck to the sheet with dried blood. Rose took the waterglass from her bedside table, smashed it against the side of her bed and told Frances she didn’t remember waking up thirsty.

#

Her father wasn’t going into the office anymore.

It took Rose a little time to realise, because he’d been in bed with his bandages, recuperating.

Charlie would go in and sit on the bed, bring a fistful of soldiers and stage battles on Tommy’s chest until Frances coaxed him out.

Rose didn’t visit. Not a lot.

She did sit outside the door though, sometimes; sometimes she fell asleep there.

“Rosie?”

She uncurled herself and sat up carefully.

“Come here.”

He didn’t have the big bandage anymore, only a small one over on his side. He was patting the mattress next to him, but Rose couldn’t sit there. It was too close. It was impossible.

“Are you better?” she asked, lingering at the foot of the bed again.

“I am, thank you.”

His frown was so deep, it could have held one of Charlie’s soldiers in it. Two even.

“Why aren’t you working?”

Rose flexed her good hand on the bedframe, making sure it wouldn’t go through the wood.

“I’m having a bit of a holiday.”

“Lovely.”

They were like boxers, Rose realised. Dancing around each other. Tapping gloves, pulling punches, feeling each other out.

“Are you better, too, Rosie?”

She looked directly at him now, her chin raised a little. Her left hand was patchy with all the colours skin could have, coated in sticky salves and bits of bandage to keep the bits between her fingers from ripping apart. Under her left sleeve hid lines and lines of cuts in various stages of healing. She couldn’t make it through one day without randomly falling asleep.

“I’m grand, thank you.”

“Good girl.”

She couldn’t believe it.

“D’you think you’re up for going back to school?”

Perhaps she’d left something of herself on the floor in the gin shed. Not a big part, necessarily, but the one that made her visible. Not Rose, the body, but Rose, the girl.

“Yea,” she said. “That’s orright.”

#

She’d hated her school, the fancy one. She’d hated it for always and forever.

If it had been up to Rose, she’d have stayed at school in Saltley, where she’d gone with Alice and James ever since schooling had been deemed necessary.

Unfortunately, it hadn’t been up to her and she’d been sent off to St. Paul’s with instructions to behave and not to tell anyone she’d not had her first communion.

The uniforms were horrible. The girls laughed at her because of the way she talked.

She’d not been since just before Christmas.

When she got there on Monday morning, Rose found she’d left another bit of herself at home. Rose, the body, was now invisible also. She went through two hours without any of the girls even glancing at her, not even in secret.

By the time her French teacher came into the classroom, Rose was convinced she’d turned into a ghost.

It seemed like altogether good news, really.

Rose stood, left her bag where it was and sprinted up the isle between the desks, headed for the green on the other side of the wall. She ran into the wall beside the blackboard with such force she gave herself a concussion, the sister half a heart attack and the girls something to talk about til the end of days.

School wasn’t brought up again.

#

With nothing to occupy her days, Rose felt herself unmooring from whatever it was that kept her where she supposedly should have been.

“Charlie?”

He opened his eyes and sat up sleepily.

“What?”

“Can you see me?”

“Yea.”

He was too small for this, but there was no one else to ask.

“Charlie?”

“Yea?”

“Can you…can you look at my back for me?”

Charlie frowned but nodded. Rose turned around and pulled up her nightdress.

“Is there a hole?” she asked, terrified to hear his answer.

“What hole?” he asked back, sounding just as scared.

“From a bullet coming out.”

“No.” Charlie’s answer was surprisingly firm. “Nothing. No hole. Just your back.”

Rose dropped her nightie down.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“That’s orright.”

“Go back to sleep.”

She tiptoed back to her room and sat on her bed. Five minutes later she could feel blood running down her back. Again.

#

Rose made a list of the things normal people did. It turned out to be very short. They ate, slept and walked around a bit. She could do these things. It couldn’t be that hard.

#

“Frances is worried about you.”

Rose tore herself away from the window and turned around slowly.

“Why is she?”

Her father was a little drunk, she suspected. He was holding himself especially tall and straight, making a conscious effort. It seemed to her he was doing this more often than not lately. 

“She says you’re not yourself.”

Rose cocked her head and looked at him. Tommy, the body, was still and strong; but Rose could nearly see Tommy, the man, ricocheting around inside it.

“Yea?”

There it was again, that strange flinch in him.

“You’re orright, Rosie?”

“Sure. Are you?”

She’d been hearing him at night. Dreaming. Shouting. Drinking and banging things.

“Of course.”

“Enjoying your holiday still?”

He stared at her for a moment.

“Just behave yourself, ay?” he said. “Frances means well.”

#

Charlie was at her door in his pyjamas, white as a sheet.

“What’s up?”

“There’s something wrong with our da,” Charlie said shakily.

“He’s probably just drunk,” Rose sighed.

“I don’t like it.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does.”

“Why?” Rose asked with genuine interest.

“Because there isn’t anyone else.”

Something slid into place. Rose couldn’t put her finger on it.

“Charlie-“ she got off her windowsill and walked over to him. “Charlie, listen. I’ll fix it, orright?”

“Can you fix it now?”

“Yea,” Rose said lightly. “But it might get a bit loud. There might be some shouting and…things.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“I don’t like shouting.”

“Just pretend like uncle Arthur’s visiting, orright?” Rose put on what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “But don’t come down, yea?”

“What’re you goin’ to do?” Charlie asked nervously.

“I told you, I’ll sort it.”

Rose left her brother, who didn’t look at all convinced, and went downstairs.


	16. Walls and Tunnels

Her father was braced against his desk with his back to the door, holding onto the edges with white knuckles; like he was a boy waiting for a caning from the headmaster.

The office wasn’t the mess she’d expected.

The lounge had been shoved aside a little and one of the chairs was on its side and there was some paper on the floor, but only a couple of sheets. Her father’s shoes lay abandoned in the middle of the rug. There was a bottle on the mantle and another on the desk and another on the small round table by the lounge.

Rose silently closed the door behind her, took two steps into the room, picked up her father’s shoes, took one in each hand and whacked the leather soles together as hard as she could.

A crack rang through the room, astonishingly loud, very much the sound she’d hoped for.

Tommy dropped; one arm around his face, the other over his head.

Rose took a step closer and banged the shoes again, watching him flinch, watching him bury his face deeper into the crook of his arm.

She took another step, clapped again. And again. Step. Clap. Step. Clap. Until she was standing right over him.

She lowered her arms until the shoes were only inches from his head and slammed them together one more time, with everything she had.

Her father shot up backwards. Crouched down and shaking, he stared at her. Rose held his stare until she saw comprehension creep across his face.

“Boo,” she said softly.

She spread her arms slowly, watching him watch her, clapped one last time and let the shoes drop.

Tommy was upon her before the shoes even hit the floor, gripping her by the arms, his face white, his eyes dark with rage. Rose felt her feet lift off the ground, as he brought her face so close to his she could have bitten it. Or kissed it.

He hurled her across the room.

She landed on the rug in front of the lounge, scrambled to her feet, took the bottle from the little round table and threw it at him. It shattered against the edge of the desk.

“What the fuck are you playing at?” Tommy roared.

“You made up the fucking game,” Rose roared back. “D’you want to play again?”

Both of them were glaring daggers now.

“Don’t fucking test me, girl..."

“You’re a sore loser, aren’t you?” she snarled.

“What the bloody hell are you on about?”

Tommy’s fists were clenched, Rose’s were, too.

“Hide-and-seek,” she shouted. “The longest game in fuckin’ hist’ry and you’re just mad ‘cause I found you out first.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“Yes!” Rose screamed. “It’s bloody lost and so’s yours - so stop fucking about with the drink and help look for them!”

He crumpled as if he’d been punched in the guts; like he’d been punched in the guts by a giant even. Rose managed to stay upright, even though her legs were shaking and her breath ragged.

“It’s orright…” her father’s hands were covering his mouth but she could hear him anyway. “You’re orright, Rosie. I’m orright… it’ll be orright.”

“No it isn’t,” she said. “I’m broken. You’re broken. And it’s all fucked.”

“Ah, Rosie.” Tommy leaned back against the desk, his shoulders slumping. “I know.”

She felt lightheaded suddenly and let herself slide backwards onto the lounge, watching her father attempt to pull himself together. Reassemble the body around the man. It wasn’t going very well. His hands were trembling, maybe because they’d nothing to hold onto, not a glass or a cigarette or a gun or some woman. His breaths sounded like rain clouds in a barrel.

Rose wanted to go over, be closer, because the lounge felt like a desert island now; but she hadn’t anything left. All she could do was watch her father wrestle with himself, until eventually he came across the carpet, the broken glass crunching under his socks, and sat beside her.

He draped his arm around her shoulders and she came undone.

There were some bits of words in amongst the rapids of tears that broke forth, but they were so drenched not even Rose knew exactly what they were.

“There’s no rush,” Tommy said softly. “You can tell me when you’re done. We’ve time.”

She was clinging to him now, like a much smaller child or a monkey or a spiderweb, soaking his shirt. There seemed no end to it, but there were waves now, waves of feeling good in all the awfulness of it all. When the tears finally started to ease it felt unfamiliar, as though she’d been crying all her life.

For a while they sat silently, Rose’s cheek against his wet-wept chest, rising and falling with his breathing. Her father was stroking her head, very, very gently, like she was a day-old chick.

“He was goin’ to shoot me…” the words floated from her, only a little damp “…he even got me the dress for it and everythin’…”

“Ay?”

There was the tiniest snag in rhythm, but her father didn’t take his hand off her head.

“He said he would only shoot me,” Rose whispered, like she was telling Alice or Helen or James or Billy a secret, “if I wanted him to.”

Tommy’s hand stilled in her hair and Rose could feel his heart pounding against her face.

“What’d you say?” he asked tonelessly.

“That he should, o’course…” Rose’s fingers found one of his shirt buttons and started twisting it. “He brushed my hair, as well…so I’d be pretty for when he’d kill me…”

“He told you this?”

“He did, yea,” she said dreamily.

“And you said for him to shoot you?”

“I did, yea.”

“Why?”

“ ’cause I got to choose.” The button was starting to loosen now. “Either me or…or you…and I couldn’t have it on my conscience.”

“What’s that mean?” her father whispered.

“That even if it hurt and even if you’d be sad for a bit, it’d still be better than what’d happen otherwise.”

“So you picked yourself, my Rosie?”

“Yea…but then he didn’t…” Rose breath hitched a little “…but…it’s like…” It was as if she was digging for the right words at the bottom of a pond and they kept slipping “…some of me went ahead…most of me even…and now it can’t get back to the rest of me…and now…”

“…it’s like your stuck in the wall,” Tommy said quietly. “Like the girl in your story.”

Rose lifted her head and looked up at him in wonder.

“Yea,” she said. “Lots of me is stuck in the wall. And the rest is walking around and…and…look…”

Carefully she pulled up her left sleeve, exposing the neat rows of cuts.

“Rosie…”

“It doesn’t hurt…the bit of me that feels things is in the wall, see, so it doesn’t hurt. But…I’ve tried so many things and I can’t get out.”

Her father pulled her closer, holding her almost a little too tightly. His free hand was running over the ripples on her arm, as if he was counting them.

“Maybe I put too much of myself away,” Rose said suddenly, struck by this new idea. “Too many pieces. And now I can’t get the lid off because there’s so much on top.”

“How d’you mean?”

“You said to put a bit away, so you wouldn’t go mad when it got too scary, d’you remember?”

She looked up and was startled to find her father’s eyes brimming with tears.

“I don’t,” he said. “Sorry.”

“I don’t remember doin’ it, not really,” she went on. “But I must’ve done.”

For the longest time neither of them said anything. They sat on the lounge, tangled up in one another, surrounded by broken glass and wafting sorrow.

“Maybe you’re just waiting til you’re sure it’s safe to come out.” Tommy sounded far away. “I think that might’ve been what happened with me.”

“Are you stuck, too?”

“Some of me, yea.”

Rose unwrapped herself from his arm and knelt on the seat.

“How d’we know if it’s safe out?”

“We don’t,” he said. “That’s the thing, isn’t it, my little love? It’s never safe. There’s always somethin’.”

“So, we’ll have to stay in forever?”

Her father frowned, thinking, visibly thinking. Rose could see him so clearly now, she had to look over to the desk to check if there was Tommy-the-body still on the floor, because only the man was here with her. There was nothing, but maybe it’d crumbled and fallen under the rug.

“No,” he said decisively. “We don’t have to, not if we’re brave.”

“Are we?” Rose asked.

“You are,” Tommy said. “I’ve not known a braver girl. I’m not so sure ‘bout myself, to tell you the truth.”

“I’ll help,” Rose offered. “If I can. If you let me.”

A couple of tears escaped and travelled down towards her father’s chin. He wiped them hastily and cleared his throat.

“Right,” he said. “How’ll we go about this then? Any ideas?”

“We should go make a fire,” Rose said without really thinking about it.

“Aye?”

“Yea.” Rose felt quite confident about this now. “Fires are good when it’s scary. For talking, as well.”

“Orright.” Tommy got up and rolled his shoulders. “That sounds fair enough.”

#

They built a fire in the empty paddock behind the stable. It wasn’t huge, but big enough for only the two of them.

“Rosie?” Tommy asked when they’d sat and stared at the flames for a bit. “You’ll not stick your arm in, will you?”

“No,” she said.

“That was terrifying.”

“ ‘m sorry.”

“No, you’re orright.” He stuck a branch into the fire and scratched at it. “How’s it feel now?  Your hand.”

“Like someone else’s.” Rose shrugged. “Lucky it’s the left, ay?”

“You’re a hard woman, Rose Shelby.” Tommy pulled the stick out and examined its red-hot end. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“That you’ve had to be.”

“It’s fine.” Rose sighed. “It is what it is. Pol always said that, when we were little.”

“You and Finn?”

“Yea.”

“You’re still little now.”

“Finn’s not,” Rose objected. “Neither am I, not really.”

“No?” “No.” She smiled at him. “I’m an old, hard woman.”

“Ah, Rosie.”

“But d’you know what else?”

“What else?”

Rose stood up, walked around the fire and sat down next to him in the damp grass.

“I think the bit of me that’s little, that’s the bit I’ve put away.”

Her father’s eyebrows rose at this.

“Because that’s the bit that would’ve been the most scared, wouldn’t it?” Rose was on a roll now. “Like our Charlie. He’s scared all the time, of most things. And he’s very little. Much littler than me. So when it got too scary, that’s what had to be put away. So that I…so…” the lid was stuck but Rose dug her nails into her palms and dragged as hard as she could “…so that I could keep walking. And waiting. So I wouldn’t think about how sad it would be to be dead.”

Tommy just looked and looked and looked at her.

“Does that sound right?” she asked after a while.

“It does,” her father croaked. “And you know what else?”

“What else?”

“The bit I’ve put away, in the tunnels, that wasn’t just a bit of me, not just, that was some of you, as well.”

Rose cocked her head but didn’t interrupt.

“When I went away,” Tommy went on hoarsely, “you were so, so small, it was terrible.  All the lads were leaving behind girls and wives and children and mothers, everyone…by rights we should’ve cried our eyes out but no one did. And then, later, when we were underground and murdering each other, there wasn’t a thing happening that could’ve existed in the same world as you. I couldn’t think about you, it was as if the world was folding in around me every time I dared. Because if you were real, then I’d have to be real and the madness all around would then be real, too.”

Rose was watching the shadows of the fire dance across his face.

“It was best,” he said. “Best not to think about you. I’d have been of no use to you if I’d come back with half my mind gone. You had to put first things first, if you wanted to come through. Eat the elephant one bite at a time. I didn’t think…”

“Don’t stop,” Rose whispered.

“See, Rosie, when I got back, I was going to pack you up and go. I’d not planned it out or anything, but we were going to go somewhere nice and green and quiet and stay there. But when I did get back, I couldn’t leave. There were too many first things. The business needed running, our Ada was after havin’ Karl, John’s Irene dead and him alone with the kids…it was fuckin’ chaos. And I just kept putting first things first, d’you understand, the things that needed immediate attention. D’you know what that means?”

“The important things?” Rose ventured.

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” her father said bitterly. “But they weren’t the important things, not always, they were just the things that’d cause the most trouble down the way if you didn’t sort them. The things I’d taught myself to pay attention to. And d’you know what else?”

“What else?” Rose stared at him, concentrating harder than ever in her life.

“There were moments when the bits of me – and of you – were trying to come out of the wall or the jar or the fuckin’ basket…and I’d shove them back in with all I had. D’you know why?”

Rose nodded slowly.

“D’you really?” Tommy asked.

“Yea,” she said. “You shoved them back in because it hurt too much.”

“Spot on,” her father said, nodding slowly.

“But d’you know what else?” Rose asked.

“No, Rosie,” he smiled a little. “What else?”

“Maybe it’s like a tunnel.”

“What’s like what tunnel?” 

Tommy took a bit of wood and chucked it into the fire.

“Maybe the hurt’s like a tunnel,” Rosie said. “And we’re afraid to go in, because tunnels are horrible, but just because we’re not in the tunnel doesn’t mean the tunnel’s not there.”

“Go on,” her father said slowly, looking at her very strangely.

“So. Maybe we’ve got to go into the tunnel, even if it’s horrible, and crawl through to see what’s on the other side. Because, maybe, it’s only horrible whilst your in the tunnel but then, when you’re on the other side, you can go wherever you like.”

“What if we don’t go into the tunnel?”

“Then we’re stuck.”

“Because the only way out is through the tunnel?”

“It might be.”

“Bloody hell, Rosie.” Her father rubbed the back of his neck. “You might be onto something here. And d’you know what else?”

“What else?”

“Some of those tunnels are so old, they’ll probably collapse as soon as we’re through. And then they won’t bother us anymore.”

“Oh, yea,” Rose said. “That’s a good one.”

There was a gust of wind and tiny bits of glowing bark soared up from the fire like a swarm of fireflies.

“Look, Rosie, the keshalyi’ve come.”

“To look out for us?”

“D’you think we need looking after?”

“Nah…we’ll be orright.”

They sat and watched the fire burn itself out.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that, my darlings, is that.  
> Thanks so much for reading - it's been a great pleasure indeed.


End file.
